April 22 Quotations

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004

I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. ~ Anne Frank

selected by Kalki

2005

Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. ~ Immanuel Kant (born 22 April 1724)

selected by Kalki

2006

I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more. ~ Vladimir Nabokov (born 22 April 1899) {10 April O.S.}

selected by Kalki

2007

It is certainly not then — not in dreams — but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

proposed by Kalki

2008

There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew. ~ Marshall McLuhan (quote for Earth Day)

proposed by Kalki

2009

The death of dogma is the birth of morality. ~ Immanuel Kant

proposed by Kalki

2010

Suggestions

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~ E. B. White (quote for Earth Day)

3 Kalki 21:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. ... We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it. ~ Wendell Berry (quote for Earth Day)

3 Kalki 21:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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The earth is what we all have in common ... it is what we are made of and what we live from, and we cannot damage it without damaging those with whom we share it. ~ Wendell Berry (quote for Earth Day)

3 Kalki 21:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. ~ Immanuel Kant

3 Kalki 21:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matter. ~ Immanuel Kant

3 Kalki 21:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. ~ Immanuel Kant

3 Kalki 21:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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Her intense and pure religiousness took the form of her having equal faith in the existence of another world and in the impossibility of comprehending it in terms of earthly life. All one could do was to glimpse, amid the haze and the chimeras, something real ahead, just as persons endowed with an unusual persistence of diurnal cerebration are able to perceive in their deepest sleep, somewhere beyond the throes of an entangled and inept nightmare, the ordered reality of the waking hour. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

3 Kalki 21:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

3 Kalki 21:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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What is this jest in majesty? This ass in passion? How do God and Devil combine to form a live dog? ~ Vladimir Nabokov

3 Kalki 21:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 00:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress. ~ Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22)

3 because the regression of science is the death of mankind. Zarbon 22:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC) but trimmed of the initial "And".

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It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so. ~ Robert Oppenheimer
(born April 22)

3 because the entire world is full of people who have sheer hatred for one another and that is moreso a fact than anything else. The very prevention of this hatred will result in even worse a fate for everyone...maintaining that prevention can end up being deadlier than the actual act which will send one to "hell". Zarbon 22:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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I need physics more than friends. ~ Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22)

3 because friends are plenty, but physics will allow for much more. Zarbon 22:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I become Death, the destroyer of worlds." ~ Robert Oppenheimer (born April 22)

4 for the full version or just trimmed to "Now I become Death, the destroyer of worlds" in reference to the old scripture and the usage of the atomic bomb as a dual dynamic. But 4 either way. Zarbon 03:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC) for full version only.

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Man's consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but creates it. ~ Vladimir Lenin

3 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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The natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical materialist. ~ Vladimir Lenin

2 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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One cannot live in society and be free from society. ~ Vladimir Lenin

3 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong. ~ Vladimir Lenin

3 because for better or for worse, history repeats itself. Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. ~ Vladimir Lenin

2 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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The state does not function as desired. The car does not obey. A man is at the wheel and he seems to lead it, but the car does not drive in the desired direction. It moves as another force wishes. ~ Vladimir Lenin

2 Zarbon 03:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
1 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is an episode in a man's. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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Men do not change; they unmask themselves. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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To whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required. ~ Henry Fielding

3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough;
I've done my duty, and I've done no more. ~ Henry Fielding

3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more. ~ Henry Fielding

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species. ~ Henry Fielding

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying which is terrible. ~ Henry Fielding

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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A good face they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World! ~ Henry Fielding

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
1 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple. ~ Charles Mingus

3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. ~ Charles Mingus

2 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
2 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time. ~ Charles Mingus

3 Zarbon 03:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
3 Kalki 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

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