April 14 Quotations

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

selected by Kalki

2005

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. ~ James Branch Cabell (born 14 April 1879)

selected by Kalki

2006

Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) (Good Friday 2006)

selected by Kalki

2007

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist... It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever... Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes." ~ Kurt Vonnegut (recent death)

proposed by Kalki

2008

What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. ... But you, I think, have always comprehended this. ~ James Branch Cabell

proposed by Kalki

2009

Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
One thing unshaken stays:
Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
Whereby decays
Each thing save one thing: — mid this strife diurnal
Of hourly change begot,
Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
And changes not.
~ James Branch Cabell ~

proposed by Kalki

2010
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

It is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true. ~ James Branch Cabell
- used 3 March 2004, selected by Kalki

Suggestions

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.
—Thomas Hardy, "The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the Titanic)" (1912)

The "convergence" of the Titanic and the iceberg was on April 14, 1912.
3 InvisibleSun 08:46, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 22:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC) but I strongly prefer to hold this one in reserve until the 100th anniversary in 2012, on which date I would certainly give it a 4.
1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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Criticism, whatever may be its pretensions, never does more than to define the impression which is made upon it at a certain moment by a work wherein the writer himself noted the impression of the world which he received at a certain hour. ~ James Branch Cabell

3 Kalki 22:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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It is necessary that I climb very high because of my love for you, and upon the heights there is silence. ~ James Branch Cabell

3 Kalki 22:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
1 Zarbon 23:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug; as well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always consider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not distrustful — being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational. ~ James Branch Cabell

3 Kalki 16:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
1 Zarbon 20:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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Everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. ~ James Branch Cabell

3 Kalki 16:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
1 Zarbon 20:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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History is a vision of God's creation on the move. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.

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A life which does not go into action is a failure. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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Great occasions rally great principles, and brace the mind to a lofty bearing, a bearing that is even above itself. But trials that make no occasion at all, leave it to show the goodness and beauty it has in its own disposition. And here precisely is the superhuman glory of Christ as a character, that He is just as perfect, exhibits just as great a spirit in little trials as in great ones. ~ Horace Bushnell

2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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Christianity is not so much the advent of a better doctrine as of a perfect character. ~ Horace Bushnell

2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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My own experience is that the Bible is dull when I am dull. When I am really alive, and set in upon the text with a tidal pressure of living affinities, it opens, it multiplies discoveries, and reveals depths even faster than I can note them. The worldly spirit shuts the Bible; the Spirit of God makes it a fire, flaming out all meanings and glorious truths. ~ Horace Bushnell

2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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O Thou Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, what Thou bearest in Thy blessed hands and feet I cannot bear; take it all away. Hide me in the depths of Thy suffering love, mold me to the image of Thy divine passion. ~ Horace Bushnell

2 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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The world is my country, science is my religion. ~ Christiaan Huygens

4 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC) but only in revised form, and as yet very tenuously for that: the earliest and only published citation I can find attributing such a statement to Huygens is in The Making of Modern Europe, 1648-1780 (1985) by Geoffrey Treasure, p. 474 where it is declared that his "motto" was "The world is my country, to promote science is my religion" but this seems very similar to the much more famous and long attested declaration of Thomas Paine: "The world is my country, and to do good is my religion."

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The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do. ~ John Holt

3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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The idea of painless, non-threatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. ~ John Holt

3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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God and the people are the source of all power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it forever. ~ François Duvalier

3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
1 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
1 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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Bullets and machine guns capable of daunting Duvalier do not exist. They cannot touch me... I am already an immaterial being. ~ François Duvalier

3 Zarbon 05:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
1 Kalki 23:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
1 InvisibleSun 23:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

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