The Daily Quote

Set Our Course

2012-02-02T09:07:00.001-05:00

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.
--General Omar Bradley

Conservative

2012-02-01T10:12:00.001-05:00

I do not know which makes a man more conservative--to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
--John Maynard Keynes

Reason

2012-01-31T09:24:00.001-05:00

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
--Thomas Paine

Mistakes

2012-01-30T08:58:00.001-05:00

Mistakes are lodged like harpoons and fish hooks in an intelligent person's soul.
--Ed Sanders

Becoming

2012-01-27T07:58:00.001-05:00

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.
--Johann von Goethe

Preferences

2012-01-26T08:28:00.000-05:00

Having preferences means having weaknesses.
--Magnus Carlsen (chess Grandmaster)

Preference & Fact

2012-01-25T09:06:00.001-05:00

The only people who are wrong are those who try to pretend that "preference" and "fact" are synonyms.
--Lisa K.

Death

2012-01-24T09:21:00.001-05:00

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
--Epicurus

Joy

2012-01-23T09:31:00.001-05:00

Nothing makes me feel better--calmer, clearer and happier--than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It's actually something deeper than mere happiness: it's joy.
--Pico Iyer

Marketing Game

2012-01-20T10:27:00.001-05:00

It's sad, isn't it, that nowhere in the complex machinations of politicians, in the development of their campaign strategies, is there the slightest hint of a nod towards what's best for America. It's all a blatant marketing game.
--Clavis

Very Fast

2012-01-19T08:55:00.001-05:00

When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.
--Marshall McLuhan

The Surface

2012-01-18T08:48:00.001-05:00

Too much is made of the value of plumbing the depths. The nice thing about kayaking is that you ride the surface, which is akin to dealing with the task at hand.
--Roger Rosenblatt

Happy

2012-01-17T06:34:00.001-05:00

People are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
--Abraham Lincoln

Questions & Answers

2012-01-13T08:58:00.001-05:00

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
--Anonymous

A Kiss

2012-01-12T07:47:00.001-05:00

You speak of a kiss as if it were the commonest thing in the world, as if it were an amenity as banal as a razor blade. (As if it grew on trees.)
--Kara Vanderbijl

Human

2012-01-11T10:00:00.001-05:00

The severely disabled challenge us by their existence. They implicitly ask, "Do you consider me human?" They suggest how arduous it is to be human. They remind us of death.
--Roger Rosenblatt

Unsupported

2012-01-10T09:59:00.001-05:00

There are many men who are fond of making an unsupported statement under the apprehension that they have posited an argument.
--F.C. Lane

Walls

2012-01-09T09:42:00.001-05:00

Walls are geometry put into humanity's service. True, they create divisions and distinctions, but so does reason.
--Costica Bradatan

Rest

2012-01-06T08:19:00.000-05:00

Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest.
--Thomas Merton

Liberty

2012-01-05T09:35:00.001-05:00

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty.
--Abraham Lincoln

Sufffering

2012-01-04T08:52:00.001-05:00

Suffering is part of life and it's not a bad thing, it is an essential thing in life.
--Rick Santorum (town hall meeting in Iowa, November 18, 2011)

Enmeshed

2012-01-03T08:58:00.001-05:00

It is precisely our enmeshments that make us who we are and give our lives meaning.
--Kathy Rudy

Recognize

2011-12-23T12:46:00.001-05:00

Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours. We don't need to learn how to let things go; we just need to learn to recognize when they've already gone.
--Shunryu Suzuki

With Love

2011-12-23T10:15:00.001-05:00

If your life is a leaf
that the seasons tear off and condemn,
they will bind you with love
that is graceful and green as a stem.
--Leonard Cohen

The Holidays

2011-12-22T08:48:00.001-05:00

The holidays are upon us again--it sounds vaguely aggressive, as if the holidays were some sort of mugger, or overly enthusiastic lover.
--Eric Weiner

The Word

2011-12-21T10:02:00.001-05:00

Is the human word truly powerful enough to change the world and influence history?
--Václav Havel

To See

2011-12-20T09:52:00.001-05:00

To see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.
--William Blake

Adjectives

2011-12-19T09:59:00.001-05:00

I truly, truly hate it when technocrats extol "efficient" and "cheap" as if these things were inherent virtues rather than simply...adjectives. Masturbation may be the most efficient, least expensive (no dinners or anniversary gifts required!) way to achieve an orgasm. Doesn't make it the best way.
--Lisa K.

Patience

2011-12-16T09:14:00.000-05:00

Patience joins time to eternity.
--Wendell Berry

The Time

2011-12-15T06:36:00.001-05:00

Can you taste
what I'm saying? It is onions or potatoes, a pinch
of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious,
it stays in the back of your throat like a truth
you never uttered because the time was always wrong...
--Philip Levine

Truth

2011-12-14T09:15:00.001-05:00

Truth is one. It doesn't change.
--William Faulkner

Glimpse

2011-12-13T08:09:00.001-05:00

To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.
--Karen Sunde

Simplest Answer

2011-12-12T09:39:00.001-05:00

Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate.
(Plurality should not be assumed without necessity.)
(The mind should not multiply entities beyond necessity.)
(What can be done with fewer...is done in vain with more.)
(The simplest answer is usually the correct one.)
--William of Ockham (aka, Occam's Razor)

Control

2011-12-09T08:25:00.001-05:00

You who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes 'round to your soul.
--Leonard Cohen

The Valleys

2011-12-08T09:13:00.001-05:00

No one lives on the top of the mountain. It's fine to go there occasionally--for inspiration, for new perspectives. But you have to come down. Life is lived in the valleys. That's where the farms and gardens and orchards are, and where the plowing and the work is done. That's where you apply the visions you may have glimpsed from the peaks.
--Arthur Gordon

Who You Are

2011-12-07T08:28:00.001-05:00

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.
--Dr. Seuss

Whole

2011-12-06T08:25:00.001-05:00

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
--Roger Caras

Dogs

2011-12-05T08:09:00.000-05:00

No one is a saying that dogs or any animals are human. They are saying that dogs are sentient beings with a rich and complex life of their own, and that they deserve to be allowed to live that life or as close to it as possible.
--Fara Field

Stories

2011-12-01T08:20:00.001-05:00

It is said that babies learn language in order to tell the stories already in them.
--Roger Rosenblatt

Chains

2011-11-30T08:09:00.000-05:00

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.
--Rosa Luxemburg

Capitalism

2011-11-29T09:23:00.001-05:00

For my part I think that capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable.
--John Maynard Keynes

Sacred

2011-11-28T08:02:00.001-05:00

There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
--Wendell Berry

Life

2011-11-23T08:58:00.001-05:00

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
--Oscar Wilde

Gangs

2011-11-22T08:16:00.001-05:00

This is not a collegial body anymore. It is more like gang behavior.
--Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN, since 1982)

Aspire

2011-11-21T08:51:00.001-05:00

That's the "war without end" objection. It's not that it will take a long time. It's that it will take forever, and we will cease being what we aspire to be in the meantime.
--Carlo Graziani

Fear

2011-11-18T09:42:00.001-05:00

Fear is the foundation of most governments.
--John Adams

The Machine

2011-11-17T06:32:00.000-05:00

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
--Mario Savio (Sproul Hall, UC Berkeley, 1964)

Beautiful Place

2011-11-16T08:37:00.001-05:00

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time.
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Labor

2011-11-15T08:48:00.000-05:00

The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.
--Wendell Phillips (b. 1811)

Traces of Happiness

2011-11-14T13:26:00.001-05:00

This is the aim of my explorations: examining the traces of happiness still to be glimpsed.
--Italo Calvino

Money

2011-11-14T07:44:00.001-05:00

We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket.
--Matt Taibbi

The Dots

2011-11-11T08:15:00.001-05:00

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
--Steve Jobs

Disconnect

2011-11-10T08:58:00.001-05:00

The disconnect between the seriousness of our angst and the silliness of our politics--between how big our problems are and how hopeless or just plain stuck the people who are supposed to address them seem--defies belief.
--Frank Bruni

Success

2011-11-09T06:16:00.001-05:00

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.
--Thomas Wolfe

Champion

2011-11-08T08:18:00.001-05:00

We forget that the United States is to boardroom looting what Nigeria is to email scams--the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
--Brett Arends

Truth

2011-11-07T08:25:00.001-05:00

The definition of hell: truth realized too late.
--E. O. Wilson

Experience

2011-11-04T08:27:00.001-04:00

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
--Oscar Wilde

Be...

2011-11-03T09:54:00.001-04:00

Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few.
--Benjamin Franklin

Remembering

2011-11-02T09:39:00.001-04:00

Some would have us believe that remembering every year has no significance, that it is laughable, that it is important to move past the memory of a thing to create art, or to make jokes, or to have a new and different life. Those things happen, because time will not allow us to remain physically in one position. Remembering is about being human. It is about being alive.
--Kara VanderBijl

Myth and Ritual

2011-10-25T13:21:00.001-04:00

We're Johnny come lately. We live in the boondocks. We emerged from microbes. Apes are our cousins. Our thoughts and feelings are not fully under our own control. And on top of all of this, we're making a mess of our planet and becoming a danger to ourselves. The trapdoor beneath our feet swings open, we find ourselves in bottomless free-fall. If it takes a little myth and ritual to get us through this, who among us could not sympathize?
--Carl Sagan

Rom Com

2011-10-25T07:47:00.001-04:00

I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.
--Mindy Kaling

Morality

2011-10-24T09:33:00.001-04:00

Premature fiscal tightening is, warns experience, as big a danger as delayed tightening would be. There are no certainties here. The world economy--or at least that of the advanced countries--remains disturbingly fragile. Only those who believe the economy is a morality play, in which those they deem wicked should suffer punishment, would enjoy that painful result.
--Martin Wolf (economics editor of the Financial Times)

The Rich

2011-10-21T06:59:00.001-04:00

How's that little fairy tale go again? We're supposed to let the rich pile up more and more because then they're going to run around and start all these businesses and employ everybody. How's that workin' out for ya?
--Back Across the River

Change

2011-10-19T07:19:00.001-04:00

Social change happens in many ways, but one primary and inescapable way is that people who are passionate and informed and courageous make personal testimony to others.
--Cary Tennis

Own

2011-10-18T09:09:00.001-04:00

Those who own the country ought to govern it.
--John Jay

Markets

2011-10-17T08:42:00.000-04:00

Our economy is based on artifacts. Property, contract, money, corporations, these are all economic domains based on law and convention. Markets themselves are not natural, they are products of law. There is no such thing as "the market," with necessary and natural features. There are markets.
--The Current Moment

The Future

2011-10-14T09:22:00.001-04:00

I've seen the future, and it's much like the present, only longer.
--Dan Quisenberry

Serenity

2011-10-13T06:48:00.001-04:00

Peace of mind isn't at all superficial, really. It's the whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this peace of mind. The ultimate test is always your own serenity.
--Robert M. Pirsig

Tyranny

2011-10-12T09:20:00.001-04:00

The rebel, unlike the revolutionary, does not attempt to undermine the social order as a whole. The rebel attacks the tyrant; the revolutionary attacks tyranny.
--Octavio Paz

Empathy

2011-10-11T08:43:00.000-04:00

Those lacking empathy don't know they don't have it.
--McTavish

Comprehending

2011-10-10T07:08:00.001-04:00

Our weakness may indeed prevent us from winning but not from comprehending the force by which we are crushed.
--Simone Weil

Two Nations

2011-10-07T07:54:00.001-04:00

The U.S. is slowly dividing into two nations, one that can't get what it needs and one that has everything and always wants more. That's how you get people in the U.S. making $200,000 a year--unquestionably rich relative to the median--whining that they're just humble middle class.
--David Roberts

Dead Soon

2011-10-06T08:15:00.001-04:00

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
--Steve Jobs (commencement address, Stanford University 2005)

Properity

2011-10-05T08:36:00.001-04:00

Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the Public Treasury.
--President Herbert Hoover (December 1930)

Split

2011-10-04T07:38:00.001-04:00

The inhabitants of the executive suites in a lot of our U.S. corporations often display split personalities. One minute they are the CEO as warrior king, ready to brave whatever challenge may come, the next minute they are the CEO as Chicken Little, ready to proclaim that the sky is falling because our government has the gall to ask them to pay the cost of doing business in America.
--Kris Broughton

Offerings

2011-10-03T06:52:00.001-04:00

Not that the world was under any obligation to appreciate the gifts he'd tried to give--but the question remained: if what you offer the world isn't needed, then why continue to bring it your offerings?
--Brian Morton

Ideas

2011-09-30T08:45:00.001-04:00

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
--John Cage

Don't Even Know

2011-09-29T08:29:00.001-04:00

We don't even know what we are, where we come from, why we're here, what we're supposed to do. How can we know the nature of something much bigger than us? We are limited by sight, hearing, physical senses, smells, tastes, thoughts, emotions. How can we think these tools give us a clear picture of what is beyond self-preservation in an unknown sea of hazards? Why do we feel we need God, a notion or understanding of God? Isn't it to feel safe?
--Steve Eatenson

Markets

2011-09-28T08:35:00.001-04:00

The markets didn't crash because we were paying too much to teachers.
--Eric Schneiderman (Attorney General, New York State)

More Is More

2011-09-27T08:00:00.001-04:00

My editor at Random House, Joe Fox, used to tell me, "Stanley, less is more." He wanted to strike--oh, he had a marvelous eye for the "good" stuff--and that's what he wanted to strike. I had to fight him tooth and nail in the better restaurants to maintain excess because I don't believe that less is more. I believe that more is more. I believe that less is less, fat fat, thin thin and enough is enough.
--Stanley Elkin

Again

2011-09-26T05:42:00.001-04:00

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
--Walt Whitman

Humble

2011-09-23T06:20:00.001-04:00

Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy of the interposition of a deity. More humble and I think truer is to consider him created from animals.
--Charles Darwin

Cuts

2011-09-22T09:22:00.001-04:00

If too many Americans don't believe in or understand what government does to help them, to offset recessions, to protect their security in retirement and in hard times, to maintain the infrastructure, to provide educational opportunities and health care decent enough to offset the disadvantages so many are born with...if those functions are unknown, underfunded, and/or carried out poorly, why should they care about how much this deal or the next one cuts?
--Jared Bernstein

Capital Gains

2011-09-21T09:04:00.000-04:00

In my experience earning income from capital gains is a lot easier than earning ordinary income. Why not tax both at the same rate? It only seems fair.
--Leonard E. Burman (deputy assistant Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration)

Values

2011-09-20T08:28:00.001-04:00

The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over adversity.
--Jared Diamond

Kindness

2011-09-19T06:57:00.001-04:00

I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverance for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
--Brendan Behan

Black Dots

2011-09-16T06:33:00.001-04:00

Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.
--Vincent van Gogh

Social Media

2011-09-15T08:53:00.001-04:00

Social media isn't about having a conversation with people you know. It's about advertising yourself. It's not social; it's media. Real conversations don't happen in public.
--Erin Biba

Storytelling

2011-09-14T09:50:00.001-04:00

Every political failure in a democracy begins with bad storytelling. When false narratives and incoherent story lines dominate public conversation, poor decisions are sure to follow.
--Gene Lyons

Learning

2011-09-13T08:39:00.001-04:00

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.
--Leon Trotsky

Not A Thing

2011-09-12T07:35:00.001-04:00

When the recession began there were many wise words about having learnt the lessons of both the Great Depression and Japan's long malaise. Now we know we didn't learn a thing.
--Joseph Stiglitz

Double Dip

2011-09-09T08:45:00.001-04:00

I keep wondering when they'll stop saying "double-dip recession," making it sound like a Baskin-Robbins promotion. I keep wondering when they'll start saying the dread D-word: Depression.
--Ron Rosenbaum

Climate Change

2011-09-08T07:18:00.001-04:00

The whole situation sort of reminds me of Trotsky's quip about the dialectic. Neither Governor Perry nor the bulk of Texas' citizens may be interested in climate change, but climate change is interested in them.
--Matthew Yglesias

The Economy

2011-09-07T09:06:00.001-04:00

Our hearts want government to come through and save the economy. But our heads know that it's not going to happen. And that failure, in turn, is only going to further weaken institutional legitimacy across the U.S. and the world. It's a vicious cycle.
--Felix Salmon

Solidarity

2011-09-06T06:59:00.001-04:00

The opposite of solidarity is dog-eat-dog, which, if we had to choose a motto for the last quarter century of American history, would work as well as any.
--Christopher Hayes

Beauty

2011-09-02T09:52:00.001-04:00

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
--Franz Kafka

It's Always Something

2011-09-01T09:37:00.001-04:00

When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health, you worry about getting rupture or something. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death.
--J. P. Donleavy

Tweeting

2011-08-31T08:15:00.001-04:00

Tweeting is like sex. Writing a book is like raising a child.
--Jaron Lanier

Collectively

2011-08-30T07:56:00.000-04:00

Are you aware that human beings cannot survive on their own? What has made our success as a species is the ability to work (dare I say it?) collectively toward basic common goals. Why the fuck is this simple fact presenting such a particularly huge problem to an extremist faction of the American political spectrum?
--Northen Soul

Money

2011-08-29T08:45:00.001-04:00

Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money.
--George Carlin