All of this time I have been trying to explain to you this: a war with fascism is a war over reality. Fascism itself requires the obliteration of the truth. The erasure of the impacts of a plague that is devastating the country is the kind of thing only an authoritarian could do.
—Kelly Hayes
The Daily Quote
Quoting Others Daily Since November 13, 1998
Friday, July 17, 2020
Thursday, July 16, 2020
Crack
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.
—Vladimir Nabokov [01.05.06]
—Vladimir Nabokov [01.05.06]
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Service
In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love, because, as the prophet says, service is love made visible. If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve your money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself. So no more winning. Instead, try to love others and serve others, and hopefully find those who love and serve you in return.
—Stephen Colbert (2011)
—Stephen Colbert (2011)
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
What I Want
We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life.
—Marina Keegan [06.04.12]
—Marina Keegan [06.04.12]
Monday, July 13, 2020
Offends
Don't allow people to get you to believe that you've offended God when in reality you've only offended them. What offends you reveals you.
—Earon M. James Sr.
—Earon M. James Sr.
Thursday, July 09, 2020
Afraid
I think my securities far outweigh my insecurities. I am not nearly as afraid of myself and my imagination as I used to be.
—Billy Connolly
—Billy Connolly
Wednesday, July 08, 2020
Twilight
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness.
—Justice William O. Douglas [04.27.06]
—Justice William O. Douglas [04.27.06]
Tuesday, July 07, 2020
Memory
I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.
—Vladimir Nabokov [09.14.06]
—Vladimir Nabokov [09.14.06]
Wednesday, July 01, 2020
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Joke
It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke.
—Søren Kierkegaard
—Søren Kierkegaard
Friday, June 26, 2020
Burning
We continue to believe in the future, even while we know what we know. Our world is burning.
—Casey Schwartz
—Casey Schwartz
Thursday, June 25, 2020
Patience
Patience is the most heroic of virtues precisely because it bears no semblance of heroism.
—Giacomo Leopardi [08.30.01]
—Giacomo Leopardi [08.30.01]
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Coming
It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
—Leonard Cohen [11.11.16]
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
—Leonard Cohen [11.11.16]
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Chain
We have sought to bind the chains of slavery on the limbs of the black man, without thinking that at last we should find the other end of that hateful chain about our own necks.
—Frederick Douglass
—Frederick Douglass
Monday, June 22, 2020
Advance
The real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development.
—Albert Einstein (May 1949)
—Albert Einstein (May 1949)
Friday, June 19, 2020
Grief
Sometimes, I can't help but feel that our grief is all this country will let us own. And though I'd very much like to pass onto you something other than this ghostly pain, America, it's all you deserve.
—Saeed Jones
—Saeed Jones
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Kick
We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can't slow down enough to enjoy them when they come.
—Alan Watts
—Alan Watts
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Useful
Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile.
(That which is beautiful is as useful as that which is useful.)
—Victor Hugo
(That which is beautiful is as useful as that which is useful.)
—Victor Hugo
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Dominance
To refuse to listen to someone's cries for justice and equality until the request comes in a language you feel comfortable with is a way of asserting your dominance over them in the situation.
—Ijeoma Oluo
—Ijeoma Oluo
Monday, June 15, 2020
Before
We can
Each of us
Do the impossible
As long as we can convince ourselves
That it has been done before.
—Octavia E. Butler [08.26.08]
Each of us
Do the impossible
As long as we can convince ourselves
That it has been done before.
—Octavia E. Butler [08.26.08]
Friday, June 12, 2020
Fiction
Things aren't necessarily going to be okay in a reasonable timeframe just because we want them to. To think otherwise is to succumb to the fiction, a sheltered, resource-rich mindset.
—Charles Yu
—Charles Yu
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Real
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
—Simone Weil [03.19.09]
—Simone Weil [03.19.09]
Tuesday, June 09, 2020
Monday, June 08, 2020
Progress
If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there.
—Malcom X (March 1964)
—Malcom X (March 1964)
Friday, June 05, 2020
Public opinion
The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.
—George Orwell (Freedom of the Park)
—George Orwell (Freedom of the Park)
Thursday, June 04, 2020
Tired
I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
—Langston Hughes [12.07.16]
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
—Langston Hughes [12.07.16]
Wednesday, June 03, 2020
Shock
Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest.
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (September 1967)
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (September 1967)
Tuesday, June 02, 2020
Burden
In fact the burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs.
—W.E.B. Du Bois (The Souls of Black Folk; 1903)
—W.E.B. Du Bois (The Souls of Black Folk; 1903)
Monday, June 01, 2020
Rebellion
This is not a riot. It is a rebellion. A riot is what white folks do in Boston after the Celtics win the championship. A rebellion is when oppressed people resist state sanctioned violence.
—Matt Gonzales
—Matt Gonzales
Friday, May 29, 2020
So Unlikely
The things that make our lives are so tenuous, so unlikely, that we barely come into being, barely meet the people we're meant to love, barely find our way in the woods, barely survive catastrophe every day.
—Rebecca Solnit
—Rebecca Solnit
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