Daily Quotes

[Tamrin]

Mobs have passions, not brains


Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity


Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some
hope that we can rise to a higher level ... that consciousness can evolve to a plane
more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference


To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible
epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of
contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that
love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the
pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with
the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes


We have spread out through the galaxy like cancer cells through a living body... We
multiply without thought to the countless life forms that must die or be pushed aside
so that we may breed and flourish. We eradicate competing forms of intelligent life


Yes, our DNA is unique, but so is a salamander's. Yes, we construct artifacts, but so
have species ranging from beavers to the architecture ants... Yes, we weave real fabric
things from the dreamstuff of mathematics, but the universe is hardwired with arith-
metic. Scratch a circle and pi peeps out. Enter a new solar system and Tycho Brahe's
formulae lie waiting under the black velvet cloak of space/time. But where has the
universe hidden a word under its outer layer of biology, geometry, or insensate rock?


It occurs to me that our survival may depend upon our talking to one another


Dan Simmons
American Science Fiction author (Hyperion Cantos)
(Born this day 1948)



Any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal which put
obedience above decent behaviour toward an innocent human being was evil

[Tamrin]

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom


Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to
remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them


It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes;
but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society


It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me,
but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important


I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant


An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines
of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity


Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness


Rev. Martin Luther King, Jnr.
(Murdered this day, 1968)



An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who will-
ingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the
community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law

[Tamrin]

[Tamrin]

b]Saturday’s Quotes:[/b]

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy


Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty,
or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves


They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that
dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion


Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome


The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long,
and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them


The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased
Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof


It is not wisdom but authority that makes a law


Thomas Hobbes
English philosopher (Leviathan)
(Born this day 1588)



I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark

(said on his death-bed)

[Tamrin]

Truth never was indebted to a lie


Wise it is to comprehend the whole


A God all mercy is a God unjust


The future ... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done


A friend is worth all hazards we can run


By all means use some time to be alone


The clouds may drop down titles and estates, and wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought


Edward Young
English poet (Love of Fame)
(Died this day 1765)



Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise

[Tamrin]

Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all


Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which


I am that which began: Out of me the years roll; Out of me God and man; I am
equal and whole; God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul


A creed is a rod, and a crown is of night: But this thing is God: To be man with thy
might, to grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light


A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man


Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things


As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead


Algernon Charles Swinburne
English poet (Atalanta in Calydon)
(Born this day 1837)



I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend

[Tamrin]

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be,
to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him


Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men can-
not make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood


There is no power on earth, that can neutralize the influence of a high, pure, simple and useful life


Few things can help an individual more than to place
responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him


Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery
which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man
cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him


I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get
entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against
the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of our
country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected
for years by the General Government. Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic
and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution


We went into slavery a piece of property; we came out American citizens. We went
into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery without a language;
we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue. We went into slavery with slave
chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands


Bro. Booker T. Washington
African-American political leader, educator and author
(Born this day 1856)



I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else

[Tamrin]

Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?


Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind


If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run — Yours
is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!


OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, till Earth and Sky stand
presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed,
nor Birth, when two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!


I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all I know);
Theirs names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who


I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards


We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse


Bro. Rudyard Kipling
English poet and novelist
(Made a Mason this day 1886)



Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures, I shall know that your
good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours: In the day of Armageddon, at
the last great fight of all, that Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall

[Tamrin]

Horror is the removal of masks


Funny how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another
person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie


Magic — that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless.
It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic


The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on


Hutchison's Law: Any occurrence requiring undivided
attention will be accompanied by a compelling distraction


Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk


I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times


Robert Bloch
American author of the macabre (Psycho)
(Born this day 1917)



So I had this problem — work or starve. So I thought
I'd combine the two and decided to become a writer

[Tamrin]

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit
in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude


There are no secrets to success.
It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure


Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible


Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off


Keep looking below surface appearances.
Don't shrink from doing so just because you might not like what you find


Every organization should tolerate rebels who tell the emperor he has no clothes


Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity


Colin Powell
American Secretary of State (2001-2004)
(Born this day 1937)



I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming