March 14

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace. ~ Helen Keller
  • selected by Kalki


2005
Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest. ~ Albert Einstein (born 14 March 1879)
  • selected by Kalki


2006
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. ~ Albert Einstein (born 14 March 1879)
  • selected by Kalki


2007
Let us not forget that human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind.
What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living. ~ Albert Einstein
  • proposed by Kalki


2008
Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars... The stakes are immense, the task colossal, the time is short. But we may hope — we must hope — that man’s own creation, man’s own genius, will not destroy him. ~ Albert Einstein
  • proposed by Kalki


2009
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion. ~ Albert Einstein
  • proposed by InvisibleSun


2010

Suggestions

One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. ~ Albert Einstein (born March 14, 1879)
  • 4 InvisibleSun 06:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 18:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC) I've never actually thought this was one of Einstein's best stated quips, and in Out of My Later Years (1956) this reads : One may say "the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility" as if he is quoting or paraphrasing the statement of someone else — perhaps Immanuel Kant. I also tend to prefer the variant translations which previous to today were not sourced at all: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." or "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." — this might be the oldest version or translation as quoted in Scripta Mathematica (1932) by Yeshiva University; it also appears in "Physics and Reality" (1936) as quoted in Einstein: A Biography (1954) by Antonina Vallentin, p. 24. — Lately I love using "Google Books" which now permits far easier sourcing of many quotes than was previously available.
  • Note: Of the quote and its variations, I would opt for the one from 1932. - InvisibleSun 20:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 04:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 UDScott 20:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC) - and I also would prefer the 1932 variant.
  • 3 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC) – (1932) Wishing the origin were more certain.


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The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. ~ Albert Einstein
  • 3 InvisibleSun 06:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 18:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC) (similar to one translation of this already used, on 25 July 2003, but there are many variant translations of this statement and I would not want to totally exclude any of them. I might rank this higher eventually.)
  • 1 Zarbon 04:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 UDScott 20:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. ~ Albert Einstein
  • 3 Kalki 18:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 04:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 UDScott 20:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3.5 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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Cupid has offered his arrows for Jesus to try;
He has offered his bow for the game.
But Jesus went weeping away, and left him there wondering why.
~ Harold Monro
  • 4 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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I am a mighty Garage,
On the corner of the Square,
And it is all my pleasure,
To provide a quick repair,
Or I can do your service,
In the blinking of an eye,
I wouldn't say it's thorough,
But it'll get you by.
~ Pam Ayres
  • 2 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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The lesson is that dying men must groan;
And poets groan in rhymes that please the ear.
~ John Wain
  • 2 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking. ~ John Wain
  • 3 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 1 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.
~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy
  • 3 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
  • 3 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth
Each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy
  • 3 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC) with a VERY strong lean toward 4.
  • 3.5 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming-

The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy
  • 3 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC) with a VERY strong lean toward 4.
  • 2.5 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC) Difficult without context for "our inspiration"
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.
~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy
  • 3 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy
  • 3 Zarbon 20:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


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We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy ~
  • 4 Kalki 08:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC) This is the first and most famous stanza of his most famous work "Ode", though I also have long liked many others within it as well.
  • 3.5 Ningauble 18:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 23:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • 2 I had originally studied this page and didn't find that part as compelling as the rest. Zarbon 02:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


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