Saturday, April 30, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-30


"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection."

Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) Science and Hypothesis, Introduction (1902)

Flying Spaghetti Monster & Raptor Jesus by Firell (2012)

Friday, April 29, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-29


"Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants—the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare from becoming a mere lower-class brawl."

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) The Carpet People, chapter 16 (1971)

British soldiers marching into Colesberg, South Africa during the Second Boer War (December 31, 1901)

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-26


"The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue."

Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) Speech during the Protestant Council of the City of New York banquet at the Astor Hotel after accepting its Family of Man award (October 28, 1964)

Screenshot from the season 25 episode of The Simpsons, Four Regrettings and a Funeral (November 3, 2013)

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-24


"Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

Epistle of James, chapter 1, verses 19-20

While Captain America mourns Sharon Carter, the Hulk has other plans (November 11, 2013) PVP by Scott R. Kurtz

Friday, April 22, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-22


"Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom. … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth."

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) Sic et Non, Prologue (1120)

Abelard and his Pupil Heloise by Edmund Leighton (1882)
Abelard and his Pupil Heloise by Edmund Leighton (1882)

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-21


"Every human being grows up inside a sheath of custom, which enfolds it as the swathing clothes enfold the infant."

Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) "Custom," The Fortnightly Review, July 1, 1888

Lili Elbe by Gerda Wegener (c. 1928)
Lili Elbe by Gerda Wegener (c. 1928)

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-20


"The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself."

Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) "In Praise of Dissent," The New York Times Book Review (December 16, 1956)

Mug shot of Ezra Pound after his surrender to the U.S. Military in northwestern Italy (May 26, 1945)
Mug shot of Ezra Pound after his surrender to the U.S. Military in northwestern Italy (May 26, 1945)

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-19


"That worst evil of long dictatorships: the loss of all political experience."

James Cameron (1911-1985) "Spain Under Franco," News Chronicle, March 3, 1954

A Moscow woman rests her bag on a discarded symbol of Communism (November 1, 1990) Photograph by Alexander Nemenov
A Moscow woman rests her bag on a discarded symbol of Communism (Nov 1, 1990) Photo by Alexander Nemenov

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-16


"The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known."

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Notebooks, "Morals"


The HAL-9000 being interviewed in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The HAL-9000 computer being interviewed in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-12


"Through [Pennsylvania Station] one entered the city like a god. Perhaps it was really too much. One scuttles in now like a rat."

Vincent Scully (1920-    ) American Architecture and Urbanism (1969)

Pennsylvania Station concourse from the southeast (April 24, 1962, 1:43 PM) Photograph by Cervin Robinson

Monday, April 11, 2016

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-10


"It's people like [Alma Mahler] who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years."

Tom Lehrer (1928-    ) Introduction to "Alma," That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Alma Mahler, Vienna (1909)

Saturday, April 09, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-09


"You simply cannot invent any conspiracy theory so ridiculous and obviously satirical that some people somewhere don't already believe it."

Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) Everything Is Under Control, Introduction (1998)

Pride and Prejudice meets The X-Files mashup from Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (2014)

Friday, April 08, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-08


"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through."

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) "A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind" (1707)

Dick Cheney listening to another speaker during the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, DC (June 2, 2008) Photograph by Saul Loeb

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-06


"I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) Up from Slavery, chapter 11 (1901)

Elsheba Khan, at the grave of her son in Arlington National Cemetery (Section 60, grave 8441) Photograph by Platon for The New Yorker (September 29, 2008)

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-05


"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."

Plato (c. 428-348 BCE) Phaedo, chapter 115 (c. 348 BCE)

CEOs of the seven largest tobacco companies being sworn in at a congressional hearing on the regulation of tobacco products (April 14, 1994) Minutes after this photograph was taken, each of them would lie under oath that nicotine was not addictive. Left to right, Donald Johnston (American Tobacco), Thomas Sandefur (Brown and Williamson), Edward Horrigan (Liggett Group), Andrew Tisch (Lorillard), Joseph Taddeo (US Tobacco), James Johnston (RJ Reynolds), and William Campbell (Philip Morris)

Friday, April 01, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-04-01


"But that poetry should be as pervious as oratory, and plainness her special ornament, were the plain way to barbarism."

George Chapman (1559-1634) Ovid's Banquet of Sense, preface (1595)

Troilus and Criseyde, Liber II (c. 1385), page 501 from The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer by William Morris, illustration by Edward Burne-Jones (1896)