Quotes Du Jour

“I am neither an optimist nor pessimist, but a possibilist.”
- Max Lerner (1902-1992) American political columnist, educator: Entry in "Who's Who in America," 1992.

“Standing at his appointed place, at the trunk of the tree, he does nothing other than gather and pass on what comes to him from the depths. And the beauty at the crown is not his own. He is merely a channel.”
- Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss painter: "On Modern Art," 1924.

“The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures.”
- Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) English chemist.

“The City is of Night; perchance of Death,
But certainly of Night; for never there
Can come the lucid morning’s fragrant breath
After dewy dawning’s cold grey air…

The City is of Night; but not of Sleep;
There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain;
The pitiless hours like years and ages creep,
A night seems termless hell.”
- James Thomson (1834 – 1882), Scottish poet and dramatist: “The City of Dreadful Night”, 1874.

“When civilization falls in its grave, and technology throws on the dirt, you realized the finest things in life are the ones that can never be hurt.”

- Bob Mould (b. 1960), American musician, songwriter and singer: ‘Crystal’ (song) on the album “Candy Apple Grey” recorded by Hüsker Dü, 1986.

“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 – 1935), American judge and jurist: attributed.

“It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays a heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky.”

- Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006), Scottish writer: “Territorial Rights”, 1979.

“Capitalism, it is said, is a system wherein man exploits man. And communism – is vice versa.”

- Daniel Bell (b. 1919), American sociologist: “The End of Ideology”, 1960.

“A dream too tired to come true, left a rebel without a clue, won’t you tell me what I should do?”

- Paul Westerberg (b. 1960), American singer-songwriter: ‘I’ll Be You’ (song) on the album “Don’t Tell A Soul”, recorded by The Replacements, 1989.

“Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.”
- James Madison (1751 – 1836), 4th American President. “The Federalist”, No. 10, 1787.

"Privacy is one of those things, like water and air (and electricity in California), that you don't think about too much until it's gone. But once you lose it or it's in short supply, you realize just how important it is."
- Carlton Vogt (b. 19xx): IT columnist and ethicist: Ethics Matters, March 28, 2001

“God changes not what is in a people, until they change what is in themselves.”
- The Koran, 13:11.

“When you meet African Americans, don’t laugh nervously at everything they say. Believe it or not, all black people are not Richard Pryor. Some of them have horrible senses of humor and are just making normal conversation with you.”
- Dennis Miller (b. 1953), American standup comedian, actor and talk show host: ‘White People’ from "Ranting Again", 1998.

“We find it hard to believe that other people' s thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are.”
- James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936), American historian: In "Quotations to Cheer You Up When the World is Getting You Down," by Allen Klein, 1991.

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people… and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.”
- John Adams (1735 – 1826), 2nd American President and Federalist statesman: “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law”, 1765.

“Conquer thyself, till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own.”
- Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 – 1890), British consul, explorer, translator, writer, poet, Orientalist and swordsman.

“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 – 1935), American judge and jurist: Court opinion Schenk v. United States, March 13, 1919.

“The force of a death should be enormous but how can you know what kind of man you’ve killed or who was the braver and stronger if you have to peer through layers of glass that deliver the image but obscure the meaning of the act? War has a conscience or it’s ordinary murder.”
- Don DeLillo (b. 1926), American author: Frank Vásquez in “Libra”, 1988.

“A virus is only doing its job.”
- David Cronenberg (b. 1943), Canadian film director: “Sunday Telegraph”, 1992.

“Whoever does not love wine, women and song, remains a fool his whole life long.”
- Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), German clergyman and scholar: attributed.

"Mainstream culture eats its young to gain its strength, like a cannibal warrior, and the intent of the fringe becomes the tool of the mainstream."
- Warren Ellis (b. 1968), British author: in an E-mail. (Bad Signal)