May 6 Quotations

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004

That best portion of a good man's life, — His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. ~ William Wordsworth

selected by Kalki

2005

If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

selected by Kalki

2006

Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action. ~ Sigmund Freud (born 6 May 1856)

selected by Kalki

2007

Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society ... may unexpectedly come forth ... to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! ... such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. ... Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. ~ Henry David Thoreau in Walden (died 6 May 1862)

proposed by Aphaia

2008

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. ~ Sigmund Freud

proposed by Aphaia

2009

When true simplicity is gain'd
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight
'Till by turning, turning we come round right.
~ Joseph Brackett ~

proposed by Kalki

2010

Suggestions

The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which it may be optimistic about the future of mankind, but in itself it signifies not a little. ~ Sigmund Freud (born 6 May 1856), The Future of an Illusion (1928)

3 Aphaia 18:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
3 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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Simplify, simplify. ~ Henry David Thoreau (died 6 May 1862), Walden (1854)

4 Aphaia 18:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC) * 3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC) I like this but there are now several other options I would rank higher for a while.
3 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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The unconscious is the larger circle which includes within itself the smaller circle of the conscious; everything conscious has its preliminary step in the unconscious. ~ Sigmund Freud

2 Kalki 16:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC) ~~3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)~~ though the concepts seem plausibly presented, I don't actually agree with the choice of terms here
3 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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Man found that he was faced with the acceptance of "spiritual" forces, that is to say such forces as cannot be comprehended by the senses, particularly not by sight, and yet having undoubted, even extremely strong, effects... The idea of the soul was thus born as the spiritual principle in the individual...Now the realm of spirits had opened for man, and he was ready to endow everything in nature with the soul he had discovered in himself. ~ Sigmund Freud

3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
4 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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Analogies prove nothing, that is quite true, but they can make one feel more at home. ~ Sigmund Freud

3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the perogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it. But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it itself wants to go. ~ Sigmund Freud

3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
3 because this deals somewhat with Freud's distinctions of the Id, Ego, and the missing Superego, nice one. Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

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He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. ~ Sigmund Freud

3 because man finds a way, even if lips are sealed. Zarbon 04:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

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Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires. ~ Sigmund Freud

3 because religion does derive its strength from the people's own instinctual desires. Whether or not it is an illusion is the question, but Freud's perspective is well said in this quote. Zarbon 04:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

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One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. ~ Randall Jarrell (born May 6, 1914)

3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

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I identify myself, as always,
With something that there's something wrong with,
With something human.
~ Randall Jarrell

3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

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Soon we shall know everything the eighteenth century didn't know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us. ~ Randall Jarrell

3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

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The people who live in a Golden Age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks. ~ Randall Jarrell

3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

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If we judge by wealth and power, our times are the best of times; if the times have made us willing to judge by wealth and power, they are the worst of times. ~ Randall Jarrell

3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
2 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

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A poem is, so to speak, a way of making you forget how you wrote it. ~ Randall Jarrell

3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

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You often feel about something in Shakespeare or Dostoevsky that nobody ever said such a thing, but it's just the sort of thing people would say if they could — is more real, in some sense, than what people do say. If you have given your imagination free rein, let things go as far as they want to go, the world they made for themselves while you watched can have, for you and later watchers, a spontaneous finality. ~ Randall Jarrell

3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
1 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

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Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution? ~ Maximilien Robespierre (born May 6)

2 because in order to have change, one must endure the many steps of revolution, so to speak. Zarbon 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 04:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

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Our revolution has made me feel the full force of the axiom that history is fiction and I am convinced that chance and intrigue have produced more heroes than genius and virtue. ~ Maximilien Robespierre (born May 6)

4 because this is rather true. The heroes of time and history have been guided much by the time in which they fell or were born into...chance is truly a major factor. Zarbon 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
1 Kalki 16:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC) tactical shift — there are several suggestions which have been made which I prefer to this one.* 3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
3 InvisibleSun 04:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

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Death is the beginning of immortality. ~ Maximilien Robespierre (born May 6)

3 because through death, one achieves the one thing one cannot achieve through living; the essence of immortality. Zarbon 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
2 InvisibleSun 04:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
1 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

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The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. ~ Maximilien Robespierre (born May 6)

3 because education is the key factor of freedom, and ignorance is bound to tyranny. Zarbon 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
2 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC) * 3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
~~3 InvisibleSun 04:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)~~

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Quoternity