Daily Quotes

[Tamrin]

I will go anywhere, as long as it be forward


Though there is antipathy in the human heart to the gospel of Christ, yet when
Christians make their good work shine, all admire them. It is when great disparity
exists between profession and practice that we secure the scorn of mankind


If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road,
I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all


It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the time be looked
upon by most of those to whom our lives are devoted as having some sinister
object in view. Disinterested labor — benevolence — is so out of their line
of thought, that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view


Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair


I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose


Death alone will put a stop to my effort!


Dr. David Livingstone
Scottish explorer and medical missionary doctor
(Born this day 1813)



All I can say in my solitude is, May Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one
— American, English, Turk — who will help to heal this open sore of the world

(Inscribed on Livingstone’s headstone)

[Tamrin]

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


How Thought is imp'otent to divine the secret which the gods defend,
The Why of birth and life and death, that Isis-veil no hand may rend


How shall the Shown pretend to ken aught of the Showman or the Show?
Why meanly bargain to believe, which only means thou ne'er canst know?
How may the passing Now contain the standing Now — Eternity? —
An endless is without a was , the be and never the to-be?


What see we here? Forms, nothing more! Forms fill the brightest, strongest eye,
We know not substance; 'mid the shades shadows ourselves we live and die.


Words, words that gender things! The soul is a new-comer on the scene;
Sufficeth not the breath of Life to work the matter-born machine?
The race of Be'ing from dawn of Life in an unbroken course was run;
What men are pleased to call their Souls was in the hog and dog begun:
Life is a ladder infinite-stepped, that hides its rungs from human eyes;
Planted its foot in chaos-gloom, its head soars high above the skies:
No break the chain of Being bears; all things began in unity;
And lie the links in regular line though haply none the sequence see


There is no Heav'en, there is no Hell; these be the dreams of baby minds,
Tools of the wily Fetisheer, to 'fright the fools his cunning blinds.
Learn from the mighty Spi'rits of old to set thy foot on Heav'en and Hell;
In Life to find thy hell and heav'en as thou abuse or use it well


The more I study religions the more I am convinced
that man never worshipped anything but himself


Bro. Sir Richard Francis Burton
British explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist,
ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat
(Born this day 1821)



Sufi-ism the Eastern parent of Freemasonry

[Tamrin]

Destiny is not a matter of change, it is a matter of choice;
it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved


Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to protect his own rights;
American civilization will teach him to respect the rights of others


The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor
of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error

As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there
are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is
a matter for discussion, so long will public speaking have its place


Nation after nation, when at the zenith of its power, has proclaimed itself invincible
because its army could shake the earth with its tread and its ships could fill the seas, but these
nations are dead, and we must build upon a different foundation if we would avoid their fate


Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic;
but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country


No one can earn a million dollars honestly


Bro. William Jennings Bryan, “The Great Commoner”
American lawyer and politician, presidential candidate
(Born this day 1860)



We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them:
"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns,
you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold"

(arguing against the gold standard)

[Tamrin]

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics


Many people consider the things government does for them to be social
progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism


The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will
know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior


I believe the preservation of our civil liberties to be the most fundamental
and important of all our governmental problems, because it always has been
with us and always will be with us and if we ever permit those liberties to
be destroyed, there will be nothing left in our system worthy of preservation


I am unalterably opposed to any species of vigilantes or to any other
extra-legal means of a majority exercising its will over a minority


We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate
but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal


Perhaps the most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the
failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism


M.W. Bro. Earl Warren
US jurist & politician (Chief justice & Californian Governor)
(Born this day 1891)



If it is a mistake of the head and not the heart don't worry about it, that's the way we learn

[Tamrin]

We are convinced of the fundamental unity of the human family


A human person is infinitely precious and must be unconditionally protected


That means that every human being — without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language,
religion, political view, or national or social origin — possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity


After two world wars, the collapse of fascism, nazism, communism and colonialism
and the end of the cold war, humanity has entered a new phase of its history


Humanity today possesses sufficient economic, cultural
and spiritual resources to introduce a better global order


Hundreds of millions of human beings on our planet increasingly suffer
from unemployment, poverty, hunger, and the destruction of their families


Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law
dating from the 11th century, not a divine command


Hans Küng
Swiss Catholic priest, theologian and author
(Born this day 1928)



We must fight the patriarchal misunderstanding of God

[Tamrin]

There are no uncontaminated angels


There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people
who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really
is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies


Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them
— at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them


Because that is when you love somebody — when you see them being
game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game


He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach — that it makes no sense


Nothing lasts and yet nothing passes either, and nothing passes just because nothing lasts


Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up


Philip Roth
American novelist (Goodbye Columbus; Portnoy's Complaint)
(Born this day 1933)



You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste?
That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more

[Tamrin]

Am I alive and a reality, or am I but a dream?


You are here for but an instant, and you mustn't take yourself too seriously


The more one knows of one's religion the less one believes
— no one living knows more of mine than I


The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime
and mayhem appears garbed in a manner of virtue


Fortunate indeed are those in which there is combined a little good and a little bad,
a little knowledge of many things outside their own callings, a capacity for love and
a capacity for hate, for such as these can look with tolerance upon all, unbiased by the
egotism of him whose head is so heavy on one side that all his brains run to that point


We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the seeeming necessity for
schooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist, we fall naturally and easily into
the manner and customs which long usage has implanted ineradicably within us


We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the mad zitidar of fact


Edgar Rice Burroughs
American sci-fi author (Tarzan of the Apes)
(Died this day 1950)



I am Tarzan, King of the Apes, mighty hunter, mighty fighter.
In all the jungle there is none so great

[Tamrin]

Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best
of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the
greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future


Every revolutionary idea — in science, politics, art, or whatever — seems to evoke three stages
of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) "It's completely impossible — don't
waste my time"; (2) "It's possible, but it's not worth doing"; (3) "I said it was a good idea all along"


It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when
men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars


It is vital to remember that information — in the sense of raw data —
is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is
not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these


I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice
whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their
own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent


When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost
certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong


The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion


Sir Arthur C. Clarke
British author, inventor and futurist (2001: A Space Odyssey)
(Died this day 2008)



Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying

[Tamrin]

Thursday’s Quotes:

If you want to be loved, be lovable


Nothing is stronger than habit


You can learn from anyone, even your enemy


It is convenient that there be gods, and,
as it is convenient, let us believe that there are


Let others delight in the good old days; I am delighted
to be alive right now. This age is suited to my way of life


Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts
humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel


The gods have their own rules


Ovid, Roman poet
(Ars Amatoria "Art of Love")
(Born this day 43 BCE)



Tempus edax rerum
(“Time is the devourer of all things”)

[Tamrin]

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess


It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded


If I have ever made any valuable discoveries,
it has been due more to patient attention, than to any other talent


To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor
or distinction than that connected with advances in science


A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that
are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding


We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such
as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances


I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people


Sir Isaac Newton, FRS
English physicist and astronomer (“last of the magicians”)
(Died this day 1727)



William Blake’s depiction of Newton

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants