Quotes of the day from previous years:
- 2004
- You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! ~ Michael Palin as "Dennis" in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- 2005
- All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle. ~ Nikola Tesla (born 10 July 1856)
- 2006
- The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of a planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation of those who are to come and point the way. ~ Nikola Tesla (born 10 July 1856)
- 2007
- The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is. ~ Marcel Proust
- 2008
- Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity. ~ Nikola Tesla
- 2009
- It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer. ~ William Blackstone
- 2010
- Universal peace as a result of cumulative effort through centuries past might come into existence quickly — not unlike a crystal that suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. ~ Nikola Tesla
- 2011
- When from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. ~ Marcel Proust
- 2012
- 2013
| True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
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| ~ Arthur Ashe ~
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- 2014
| Since the beginning of time, children have not liked to study. They would much rather play, and if you have their interests at heart, you will let them learn while they play; they will find that what they have mastered is child's play.
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| ~ Carl Orff ~
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- 2015
- 2016
| People are curious. A few people are. They will be driven to find things out, even trivial things. They will put things together, knowing all along that they may be mistaken. You see them going around with notebooks, scraping the dirt off gravestones, reading microfilm, just in the hope of seeing this trickle in time, making a connection, rescuing one thing from the rubbish.
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| ~ Alice Munro ~
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- 2017
| Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
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| ~ Nikola Tesla ~
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- 2018
| If at least, time enough were alloted to me to accomplish my work, I would not fail to mark it with the seal of Time, the idea of which imposed itself upon me with so much force to-day, and I would therein describe men, if need be, as monsters occupying a place in Time infinitely more important than the restricted one reserved for them in space, a place, on the contrary, prolonged immeasurably since, simultaneously touching widely separated years and the distant periods they have lived through — between which so many days have ranged themselves — they stand like giants immersed in Time.
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| ~ Marcel Proust ~
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- 2019
United teams win. Divided teams lose. Play to our multicultural strengths. Stop preaching the messages of hate and division in your campaign themes.
And now, a message to both parties. Please remember that those who have participated in the United We Stand America movement are intelligent, thinking, responsible people. They are not unprogrammed robots who can be emotionally swayed by your negative ads or messages of fear and divisiveness. Bluntly, you will have to face the issues to get their votes. Mud wrestling and messages aimed at destroying your opponent and his loved ones won't work.
I love the American people and I am sure that you do, too. I owe them a debt I can never repay and so do you. Today, their Government is a mess, and they want it fixed. By joining together as the owners of this great country, they can solve these problems.
As I've said before, it is time to clean out the barn — join us — pick up a shovel. Get to work!
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| ~ Ross Perot ~
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- proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
- 2020
- 2021
By art alone we are able to get outside ourselves, to know what another sees of this universe which for him is not ours, the landscapes of which would remain as unknown to us as those of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world, our own, we see it multiplied and as many original artists as there are, so many worlds are at our disposal, differing more widely from each other than those which roll round the infinite and which, whether their name be Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us their unique rays many centuries after the hearth from which they emanate is extinguished.
This labour of the artist to discover a means of apprehending beneath matter and experience, beneath words, something different from their appearance, is of an exactly contrary nature to the operation in which pride, passion, intelligence and habit are constantly engaged within us when we spend our lives without self-communion, accumulating as though to hide our true impressions, the terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life.
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| ~ Marcel Proust ~
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- 2022
- 2023
| We passionately long that there may be another life in which we shall be similar to what we are here below. But we do not pause to reflect that, even without waiting for that other life, in this life, after a few years we are unfaithful to what we have been, to what we wished to remain immortally.
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| ~ Marcel Proust ~
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- 2024
| Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people. Even the simple act which we describe as "seeing some one we know" is, to some extent, an intellectual process. We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we have already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds those ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognise and to which we listen.
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| ~ Marcel Proust ~
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- 2025
- Rank or add further suggestions…
Ranking system:
- 4 : Excellent - should definitely be used.
- 3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
- 2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
- 1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
- 0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
Tesla has contributed more to electrical science than any man up to his time. ~ Lord Kelvin. Nikola Tesla was born that day.
- 1 121a0012 June 27, 2005 03:59 (UTC) (Surely wtih the likes of Cheryl Wheeler and Arlo Guthrie born on this day, we can do better!)
- 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 27 June 2005 11:27 (UTC) (Better than Tesla, to whom all people are indebted to? Tesla made mass-use of computers which generate large amount of electricity possible with alternating current. There are not many people who contributed more to humanity than Tesla has, and very few who got as little thanks).
- 3 AllanHainey 7 July 2005 13:55 (UTC)
- 1 Sorry, but bored. Aphaia 21:26, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
- 0 Jeff Q (talk) 10:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC). Better a quote from Telsa himself.
- 1 Kalki 20:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC) Agree that quotes by Tesla are superior to quotes about him as commemorations of his birthday, but might eventually rank this higher.
- 0 because I agree with Jeffq. Zarbon 05:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
- 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
That's all, folks! ~ Porky Pig voiced by Mel Blanc who died on this day.
- 3 AllanHainey 7 July 2005 13:55 (UTC)
- 2 Without context, it sounds not significant. --Aphaia 21:26, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
- 1 InvisibleSun 11:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- 2 Kalki 18:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
- 0 Zarbon 05:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
- 0 Ningauble 14:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC) Because (1) Mel Blanc's rendition was original but we cannot render it here, and (2) the closing line was not original to the Porky Pig character, but was borrowed from Bosko.
- 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
- "Eh... what's up, doc?" - Bugs Bunny by Mel Blanc
- 3 AllanHainey 7 July 2005 13:55 (UTC) both just so that there is a few to choose from.
- 2 Without context, it sounds not significant. --Aphaia 21:26, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
- 1 InvisibleSun 11:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- 1 Kalki 18:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC) would be better on Blanc's birthday perhaps.
- 0 Zarbon 05:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
- 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Doubtless all arbitrary powers, well executed, are the most convenient, yet let it be again remembered, that delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters; that these inroads upon this sacred bulwark of the nation are fundamentally opposite to the spirit of our constitution; and that, though begun in trifles, the precedent may gradually increase and spread, to the utter disuse of juries in questions of the most momentous concern. ~ William Blackstone (born July 10, 1723)
- 3 InvisibleSun 11:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- 3 Kalki 18:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC) but would probably expand this for context to read:
- The founders of the English laws have with excellent forecast contrived, that no man should be called to answer to the king for any capital crime, unless upon the preparatory accusation of twelve or more of his fellow subjects, the grand jury: and that the truth of every accusation, whether preferred in the shape of indictment, information, or appeal, should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours, indifferently chosen, and superior to all suspicion. So that the liberties of England cannot but subsist, so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, (which none will be so hardy as to make) but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it; by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial, by justices of the peace, commissioners of the revenue, and courts of conscience. And however convenient these may appear at first, (as doubtless all arbitrary powers, well executed, are the most convenient) yet let it be again remembered, that delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters; that these inroads upon this sacred bulwark of the nation are fundamentally opposite to the spirit of our constitution; and that, though begun in trifles, the precedent may gradually increase and spread, to the utter disuse of juries in questions of the most momentous concern.
- 1 Zarbon 05:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
- 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC) I've read this three times and I still have no idea what it means. Once I get to the semicolon, it's all downhill.
Tell me, I forget, show me, I remember, involve me, I understand. ~ Carl Orff
- 3 Kalki 20:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC) (I would probably rank this a 4, if proven to be Orff's comment, but I haven't been able to definitely source it; though I have seen it specifically cited to Orff, it has also sometimes been cited as an "ancient proverb" "ancient chinese proverb" or "old chinese proverb" — since at least as early as 1983 — though it does seem precisely characteristic of Orff's teaching philosophy.)
- 1 Zarbon 05:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
- 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC) ("3" with a source)
Elemental Music is never just music. It's bound up with movement, dance and speech, and so it is a form of music in which one must participate, in which one is involved not as a listener bust as a co-performer. ~ Carl Orff
- 3 Kalki 10:14, 3 July 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
- 2 Zarbon 05:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
- 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
| Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
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| ~ Nikola Tesla ~
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| The most abject form of slavery there is, is slavery to one's own feelings or passions or desires.
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| ~ Robert P. George ~
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| The goal, the project of living a human life, a truly human life, is all about self-mastering.
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| ~ Robert P. George ~
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