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day of the year From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium
Quotes of the day from previous years:
Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason. |
~ Sydney J. Harris ~ |
The old phrase, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people", represents a true ideal. It is best for the people as a whole. It is even more clearly the best for the development of the individual man and woman. And since in the end, the character and the prosperity of the nation depend on the character of the individuals that compose it, the form of government which best promotes individual development is the best for the people as a whole. |
~ Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood ~ |
Freud's prescription for personal happiness as consisting of work and love must be taken with the proviso that the work has to be loved, and the love has to be worked at. |
~ Sydney J. Harris ~ |
The principal difference between love and hate is that love is an irradiation, and hate is a concentration. Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the object of its hatred. All the fearful counterfeits of love — possessiveness, lust, vanity, jealousy — are closer to hate: they concentrate on the object, guard it, suck it dry. |
~ Sydney J. Harris ~ |
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Some people have easy temperaments and weak characters; others have difficult temperaments and strong characters. We are all prone to confuse the two in assessing people we associate with. Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable. Of course, the optimum for a person is to possess both an easy temperament and a strong character, but this is a rare combination, and few of us are that lucky. |
~ Sydney J. Harris ~ |
The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong." |
~ Sydney J. Harris ~ |
Patriotism or any other version of the herd instinct seems to me an entirely inadequate basis of virtue. Christianity is from that point of view an explanation of and a support for an essential ingredient in man's nature — far the best, though necessarily imperfect. |
~ Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood ~ |
Baby hold on to me Whatever will be, will be The future is ours to see So baby hold on to me. |
~ Eddie Money ~ |
The most worthwhile form of education is the kind that puts the educator inside you, as it were, so that the appetite for learning persists long after the external pressure for grades and degrees has vanished. Otherwise you are not educated; you are merely trained. |
~ Sydney J. Harris ~ |
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us. |
~ Alexander von Humboldt ~ |
Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion. |
~ Jean-Luc Godard ~ |
Work and play are an artificial pair of opposites, because the best kind of play contains an element of work, and the most productive kind of work must include something of the spirit of play. |
~ Sydney J. Harris ~ |
The great difficulty of all schemes for leagues of nations and the like has been to find an effective sanction against nations determined to break the peace. I will not now discuss at length the difficulties of joint armed action, but every one who has studied the question knows they are very great. It may be, however, that a league of nations, properly furnished with machinery to enforce the financial, commercial, and economic isolation of any nation determined to force its will upon the world by mere violence, would be a real safeguard for the peace of the world. |
~ Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood ~ |
Ranking system:
Mankind will possess incalculable advantages and extraordinary control over human behavior when the scientific investigator will be able to subject his fellow men to the same external analysis he would employ for any natural object, and when the human mind will contemplate itself not from within but from without. – Ivan Pavlov (born September 14, 1849)
Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things. ~ Alexander von Humboldt
The beauty of "spacing" children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones—which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones. ~ Sydney J. Harris
People who think they’re generous to a fault usually think that’s their only fault. ~ Sydney J. Harris
Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure. ~ Sydney J. Harris
Superior people are only those who let it be discovered by others; the need to make it evident forfeits the very virtue they aspire to. ~ Sydney J. Harris
Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don't. You are in good company... You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope. ~ John Piper[citation needed]
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