January 16
2004
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. ~ Arthur C. Clarke
- selected by Kalki
2005
- If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it. ~ Ernest Hemingway
- selected by Kalki
2006
- What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love... I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. (Martin Luther King Day 2006 in U.S.)
- selected by Kalki
2007
- To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and thought. That's what lasts. That's what continues to feed people and give them an idea of something better. A better state of one's feelings or simply the idea of a silence in one's self that allows one to think or to feel. Which to me is the same. ~ Susan Sontag (born January 16, 1933)
- proposed by InvisibleSun
2008
- I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up. ~ Susan Sontag
- proposed by InvisibleSun
2009
Suggestions
Complete honesty has nothing to do with "purity" or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the completely honest artist is not pure in heart. ~ Clement Greenberg (born January 16, 1909)- 3 InvisibleSun 09:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- 1 Zarbon 18:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- 2 Kalki 16:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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One cannot condemn tendencies in art; one can only condemn works of art. To be categorically against a current art tendency or style means, in effect, to pronounce on works of art not yet created and not yet seen. It means inquiring into the motives of artists instead of into results. Yet we all know — or are supposed to know — that results are all that count in art. ~ Clement Greenberg
- 3 InvisibleSun 09:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- 3 Kalki 19:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
- 1 Zarbon 18:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough. ~ Clement Greenberg
- 3 InvisibleSun 09:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- 3 Kalki 23:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- 1 Zarbon 18:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness. The truths we respect are those born of affliction. We measure truth in terms of the cost to the writer in suffering — rather than by the standard of an objective truth to which a writer's words correspond. Each of our truths must have a martyr. ~ Susan Sontag
- 3 InvisibleSun 09:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- 3 Kalki 23:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- 2 Zarbon 18:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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The principal instances of mass violence in the world today are those committed by governments within their own legally recognized borders. ~ Susan Sontag
- 3 InvisibleSun 09:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- 1 Zarbon 18:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- 3 Kalki 16:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. ~ Susan Sontag
- 3 InvisibleSun 09:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- 1 Zarbon 18:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- 2 Kalki 16:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~ Voltaire
- 4 In particular I think this is an important quote in these days when the Pope cannot speak in Rome University in Italy...
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- 4 Kalki 16:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC) but with proper attribution to Evelyn Beatrice Hall, (whose birthdate remains uncertain), and a comment that it is often misattributed to Voltaire.
* 1 Kalki 19:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC) no clear relation to the date, and though I would like to use this someday, - 4 because this is a very powerful quote and it emphasizes the devotion complex which I wholeheartedly love. If only it were related to the date and the author were corrected, it should definitely eventually be used. It should be used on Hall's date of birth if not here, although I've had trouble locating her accurate date of birth. Zarbon 18:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- 4 Kalki 16:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC) but with proper attribution to Evelyn Beatrice Hall, (whose birthdate remains uncertain), and a comment that it is often misattributed to Voltaire.