January 1 Quotations

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004

Jackie Biskupski is running for a seat in the Utah Legislature, and she's attracting a lot of attention because she's a lesbian. Her Republican opponent, Dan Alderson, is a staunch Mormon, and is running a negative ad campaign calling her lifestyle abnormal and deviant. His six wives agree. ~ Rick Mercer, on This Hour Has 22 Minutes (12 October 1998)

selected by IP 138.88.194.75

2005

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

selected by Kalki

2006

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die. ~ E. M. Forster (date of birth)

proposed by Kalki

2007

I do not believe in Belief. But this is an Age of Faith, and there are so many militant creeds that, in self defence, one has to formulate a creed of one's own. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy are no longer enough in a world where ignorance rules, and Science, which ought to have ruled, plays the pimp. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy — they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long. ~ E. M. Forster

proposed by Kalki

2008

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also the creative impulse. ~ E. M. Forster

proposed by Fys

2009

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. ~ E. M. Forster

proposed by Kalki

2010

Suggestions

I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster. ~ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, published that day

2. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 13:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
2 Kalki 07:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC) Not a great lead for any "New Year"...
2 InvisibleSun 09:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

----

If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious. ~ E. M. Forster

3 InvisibleSun 09:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 01:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

----

Most of us will be eclectics to this side or that according to our temperament. The human mind is not a dignified organ, and I do not see how we can exercise it sincerely except through eclecticism. And the only advice I would offer my fellow eclectics is: "Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful." ~ E. M. Forster

3 InvisibleSun 09:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 01:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

----

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. ~ Barry Goldwater

3 Kalki 07:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 09:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

----

My faith in the future rests squarely on the belief that man, if he doesn't first destroy himself, will find new answers in the universe, new technologies, new disciplines, which will contribute to a vastly different and better world in the twenty-first century...To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom. ~ Barry Goldwater

3 Kalki 07:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 09:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

----

Civilizations have been founded and maintained on theories which refused to obey facts. ~ Joe Orton (born January 1, 1933)

3 InvisibleSun 09:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 01:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

----

God will not forgive us if we fail. ~ Leonid Brezhnev (born January 1)

4 Zarbon 06:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
- SOURCE: Understanding the Cold War: A Historian's Personal Reflections - Page 269 - by Adam Bruno Ulam - History - 2002
2 Kalki 01:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 20:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

----

It is madness for any country to build its policy with an eye to nuclear war. ~ Leonid Brezhnev (born January 1)

3 Zarbon 06:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
- SOURCE: Indefensible Weapons: The Political and Psychological Case Against Nuclearism - Page 224 by Robert Jay Lifton, Richard A. Falk - Political Science - 1982
1 Kalki 01:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC) I can agree with the statement entirely, but simply don't see this relic of the cold war era, when major nations did have developed notions of nuclear war as a prominently promoted option of policy, as a good opener for any new year. ~ Kalki 23:44, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 20:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

----

The danger, however, is not less real because it is imaginary; imagination acts upon man as really does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid. ~ James Frazer

3 Zarbon 06:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 01:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC) but might rank this a 3 if extended for more context.
3 InvisibleSun 20:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

----

I don't really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it's always nice, I'll grant you, if he has one. ~ J. D. Salinger (born 1 January 1919)

3 Kalki 20:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 20:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 15:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

----

Life is a gift horse in my opinion. ~ J. D. Salinger (born 1 January 1919)

3 Kalki 20:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 20:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 15:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

----

All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. ~ J. D. Salinger

3 Kalki 20:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 20:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 15:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

----

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it. ~ J. D. Salinger

3 Kalki 20:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 20:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 15:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

----

Quoternity