Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-31


"Every body is a critic."

Robert Southey (1774-1843) Letter to Robert Rickman (May 30, 1804)

Waldorf and Statler from The Muppet Show (circa 1975)
Waldorf and Statler from The Muppet Show (circa 1975)

Monday, May 30, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-30, Memorial Day


"I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung."

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) Speech at Arlington Cemetery on Decoration Day (May 30, 1868)

Twilight at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (2012)
Twilight at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (2012)

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-29


"Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it had been discovered before. Lastly they say they always believed it."

Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) Quoted in Harper's Bazaar (August 6, 1870)

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition by Cristiano Banti (1857)
Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition by Cristiano Banti (1857)

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-28


"Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else—and failing."

Raymond Radiguet (1903-1923) Quoted by Jean Cocteau in his acceptance speech to the Académie Française (October 20, 1955)

Slim Pickins as Major T.J. Kong in Dr. Strangelove, riding an atomic bomb as it falls to Earth (1964)
Slim Pickins as Major T.J. Kong in Dr. Strangelove, riding an atomic bomb as it falls to Earth (1964)

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-26


"The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) "The Conservative," A Lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple, Boston (December 9, 1841)

The Third-Term Panic by Thomas Nast, from Harper's Weekly (November 7, 1874)
The Third-Term Panic by Thomas Nast, from Harper's Weekly (November 7, 1874)

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-25


"We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is an illusion."

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938) The Growth of the Law (1924)

Surreptitious photograph of the Supreme Court in the Old Senate Chamber (1932) by Erich Salomon. On the bench, left to right: James McReynolds, Pierce Butler, Louis Brandeis, Willis Van Devanter, Charles Evans Hughes, George Sutherland, Owen Roberts, and Benjamin N. Cardozo. Not pictured: Harlan Fiske Stone, who would normally have occupied the empty chair.
Surreptitious photograph of the Supreme Court in the Old Senate Chamber (1932) by Erich Salomon. On the bench, left to right: Willis Van Devanter, Pierce Butler, Louis Brandeis, James McReynolds, Charles Evans Hughes, George Sutherland, Owen Roberts, and Benjamin N. Cardozo. Not pictured: Harlan Fiske Stone

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-24


"It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods."

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) Journal entry, "Cambridge, July 1842"

Portrait of a young man representing the nativist ideal of the Know Nothing party (1854)
Portrait of a young man representing the nativist ideal of the Know Nothing party (1854)

Monday, May 23, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-23


"I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense."

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) Journal entry (November 17, 1896)

Letter to three year old Eric Moore, one of the children of Potter's last governess, Annie Carter-Moore (August 21, 1892)
Letter to three year old Eric Moore, one of the children of Potter's last governess, Annie Carter-Moore (August 21, 1892)

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-22


"Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few."

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) "Thoughts on Various Subjects," published by Jonathan Swift in Miscellanies, volume 2 (1727)

Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Melania Trump during the Trump's wedding reception at their Mar-a-Lago estate (January 22, 2005) Photograph by Maring Photography

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-21


"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) On Liberty, chapter 2 (1859)

Mug shot of Emma Goldman, after being falsely implicated in the McKinley assassination (September 10, 1901)

Friday, May 20, 2016

Monday, May 16, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-16


"At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice."

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) "Sex and the Law," Partisan Review (Summer 1965)

Students burn desegregation literature at the University of Alabama while protesting the enrollment of Autherine Lucy (February 6, 1956)

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-15


"Defend your opinion only if it can be shown to be true, not because it is your opinion."

Jack McDevitt (1935-    ) Omega, chapter 33 (2003)

Artist is unknown (cira 2013). If anyone has any information about them, please contact me, and I will give proper credit

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-14


"Fate will not be confined by paragraphs."

Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946) On the limitations of written constitutions. Memoirs of Alfred Rosenberg (1946)

American hostages are paraded before the news media after Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran (November 4, 1979)

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-12


"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Letter to Eugen Heinrich Schmitt (October 12, 1896)

Anti factory farming ad campaign created by Voiceless (2012)

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-11


"We are dealing with [veterans], not procedures; with their problems, not ours."

Omar Bradley (1893-1981) "General Bradley Speaks of Personnel Affairs," Veterans Administration Personnel Bulletin IB-5, Volume 11 (May 31, 1947)

Original caption: "At the Bronx VA Hospital veteran Frank Stoppiello, wounded in the Ashau Valley in Vietnam, gives a cigarette to quadriplegic Andrew Kmetz, an Army veteran, as they wait for treatment. Because of overcrowding, they must share a corner with trash cans." (May 22, 1970) Photo by Co Rentmeester for Life magazine

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Monday, May 09, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-09


"There is no great genius without a mixture of madness."

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) Quoted by Seneca the Younger in De Tranquillitate Animi, chapter 15 (circa 49-62 CE)

John and Alicia Nash on their wedding day (February 1957)

Saturday, May 07, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-07


"Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better."

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930-2002) "On the nature of Computing Science" (EWD896) August 10, 1984

Form RFC791 for Internet Protocol (circa 1999)

Friday, May 06, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-06


"Terrorism … is a war of the poor against the rich. War is terrorism of the rich against the poor."

Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) Achtung! Vorurteile (2003)

The World Trade Center, the morning of September 12, 2001. Photograph by Jim MacMillan

Thursday, May 05, 2016

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-04


"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."

John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) Quoted in "An Impeachment Trial" by the editors of The Chronicle, University of Michigan (March 17, 1869)

Street art by Mogul, in Stockholm, Sweden

Monday, May 02, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-02


"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve."

Max Planck (1858-1947) "Epilogue: A Socratic Dialogue," Where is Science Going? (1932)

Hand with Reflecting Sphere by M.C. Escher (January 1935)

Sunday, May 01, 2016

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-01


"Whenever I stumble over my own feet, or blurt out a thought that makes no sense at all, or leave the house wearing one pattern too many, I always think, It's okay, I'm from New Jersey. I love New Jersey, because it's not just an all-purpose punch line, but probably a handy legal defense, as in, 'Yes, I shot my wife because I thought she was Bigfoot, but I'm from New Jersey.'"

Paul Rudnick (1957-    ) I Shudder (2009)

Promotional image with Vincent Schiavelli as John O'Connor, John Lithgow as Lord John Whorfin, and Christopher Lloyd as John Bigbooté from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)