Daily Quotes

[Tamrin]

The world is what it is; men who are nothing,
who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it


Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two


Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history,
like sanctity, can reside in the heart; it is enough that there is something there


Ignorant people in preppy clothes are more dangerous to America than oil embargoes


Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche
in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit them-
selves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision


One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations,
a mass of other people's ideas — and you have to work through it all


The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves


V.S. Naipaul
Trinidadian-born writer (A House for Mr. Biswas)
(Born this day 1932)



I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that
is true. It might seem strange that a man who has dealt in words and emotions
and ideas for nearly fifty years shouldn't have a few to spare, so to speak. But
everything of value about me is in my books. Whatever extra there is in me at
any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next
book. It will — with luck — come to me during the actual writing, and it will
take me by surprise. That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing

[Tamrin]

Grown men can learn from very little children for the hearts
of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may
show to them many things which older people miss


And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw
the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me


And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the
many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and
as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering
tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father


Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and
feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in
my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make
words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me


They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead
all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing
Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life


And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did,
and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less
good to the people than some man who had never dreamed
at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me


Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking


Black Elk
Medicine Man or Holy Man of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux)
(Died this day 1950)



Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold
me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice

[Smithee]

Smithee's pick of the day.

Aug 17, 2012 7:26:54 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations,
a mass of other people's ideas — and you have to work through it all

V.S. Naipaul
(Born this day 1932)

[Tamrin]

Quotes for the Day:

Heaven has appointed me to rule all the nations,
for hitherto there has been no order upon the steppes


As my calling is high, the obligations incumbent upon me are also
heavy; and I fear that in my ruling there may be something wanting


All who surrender will be spared; whoever does not surrender
but opposed with struggle and dissension, shall be annihilated


I will rule them by fixed laws so that rest and happiness shall prevail in the world


If the great, the military leaders and the leaders of the many descendants of
the ruler who will be born in the future, should not adhere strictly to the
Yasa [legal code], then the power of the state will be shattered and come to
an end, no matter how they then seek Genghis Khan, they shall not find him


Despite all expectations, the time of my last campaign and of my
passing is near. I wish to die at home. Let not my end disarm you,
and on no account weep for me, lest the enemy be warned of my death


With Heaven's aid I have conquered for you a huge empire. But my life
was too short to achieve the conquest of the world. That task is left for you


Genghis Khan
Mongol conqueror (father of a Nation)
(Died this day 1227, some say 25 August)



The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before
you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him
shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters

[Tamrin]

I can't help believing that these things that come from the subconscious mind have
a sort of truth to them. It may not be a scientific truth, but it's psychological truth


Whatever terrific events may inform our lives,
it always comes to that in the end; we just want to lie down


It is at night... that the mind is most clear, that we are
most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull


To qualify as a Seeker, it was necessary to show a high serendipity factor. In
my experimental behaviour pool as a child, I had exhibited such a factor, and
had been selected for special training forthwith. I had taken additional courses
in Philosophical, Alpha-humerals, Incidental Tetrachotomy, Apunctual Synch-
ronicity, Homoontogenesis, and other subjects, ultimately qualifying as a Prime
Esemplastic Seeker. In other words, I put two and two together in situations where
other people were not thinking about addition. I connected. I made wholes greater
than parts. Mine was an invaluable profession in a cosmos increasingly full of parts


Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The
process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house
against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they
have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name


It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting
formulaic work, generating one's own creativity — that's a much tougher matter


Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem


Brian Aldiss, OBE
English science fiction author
(Born this day 1925



When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults

[Tamrin]

Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything


Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten


Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless


A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do
under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying


The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount


The consequences of an act affect the probability of it's occurring again


The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do.
The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man


B.F. Skinner
US behavioural psychologist (Operant Conditioning)
(Died this day 1990)



Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies,
and no science of behaviour can change the essential nature of man,
even though both sciences yield technologies
with a vast power to manipulate the subject matters

[Smithee]

Smithee's pick of the day.

Aug 18, 2012 7:20:57 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

Sooner or later, all conspiracy theories, no matter how outlandish, must eventually rest on a certain set of facts. And facts can be checked

Vincent Bugliosi
(Born this day 1934)

[Tamrin]

Quotes for the Day:

Beware the fury of a patient man


We first make our habits, and then our habits make us


The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one


Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
and thin partitions do their bounds divide


All heiresses are beautiful


It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend


Never was patriot yet, but was a fool


John Dryden
1st poet laureate of England (Absalom & Achitophel)
(Born this day 1631)



For they conquer who believe they can

[Tamrin]

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree


Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved,
what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it
proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose
nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists


Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary
of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them


It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that,
for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false


Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully
as when they do it from religious conviction


Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad
would amount to another form of madness


Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is
everywhere and the circumference nowhere


Blaise Pascal
French philosopher, writer and mathematician
(Died this day 1662)



My God, forsake me not
(Last words)

[Tamrin]

There are people who have money and people who are rich


Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from
adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future


Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty.
It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity


In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different


Nature gives you the face you have at twenty;
it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty


Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky,
in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening


Fashion is made to become unfashionable


Coco Chanel
French fashion designer
(Born this day 1883)



A fashion that does not reach the streets is not a fashion