Quote of the Day for 2016-10-01

"Poverty is the mother of crime."

— Cassiodorus (circa 485-585 CE) Variae Epistolae, book 9, epistle 13 (537 CE)

Mugshot of Alice Caush, arrested for larceny in North Shields (October 31, 1903) Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-30

"Faith which does not doubt is dead faith."

— Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) The Agony of Christianity (1931)

Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur by Maurycy Gottlieb (1878)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-29

"The grief that does not speak, Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."

— William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Macbeth, act 4, scene 3 (1606)

Paul McCartney leaving the AIR Oxford Street studio shortly after the murder of John Lennon (December 9, 1980) Photograph by Paul Fievez

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-28

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."

— Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) The One-Straw Revolution (1975) translated by Larry Korn, Chris Pearce, and Tsune Kurosawa (1978)

Satellite image of the effluent pond at Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, Texas (2013) Photo enhancements by Mishka Henner

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-27

"Nothing does Reason more Right, than the Coolness of those that offer it: for Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers."

— William Penn (1644-1718) Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims, part 1 (1682)

Martin Luther King, Jr. during an SCLC meeting at B.B. Beamon's Restaurant in Atlanta (January 23, 1963) Photograph by Flip Schulke

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-26

"Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth."

— Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) Minima Moralia, section 143 (1951) translated by E.F.N. Jephcott (1974)

Fall of the Magician engraving by Pieter van der Heyden (1565) after Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-25

"Our supreme governors, the mob."

— Horace Walpole (1717-1797) Letter to Sir Horace Mann (September 7, 1743)

Governor Orval Faubus speaking to the crowd protesting against the integration of Little Rock Central High School (August 20, 1959) Photograph by John T. Bledsoe

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-24

"In politics evils should be remedied not revenged."

— Napoleon III (1808-1873) Des Idées Napoléoniennes (1839) Translated by James Augustus Dorr (1859)

The Tramp scene from A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-23

"Tyranny, in this model, is not created by tyrants alone but by neurotic masses who want tyrants."

— Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) Everything is Under Control (1998)

Donald Trump speaking at FreedomFest in Las Vegas (July 11, 2015) Photograph by L.E. Baskow

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-22

"Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories."

— George R.R. Martin (1948-    ) Interview with Christina Radish in Collider.com (April 17, 2011)

Mugshot of Al Capone after being arrested in Philadelphia on a concealed weapons charge (May 16, 1929)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-21

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."

— A.J. Liebling (1904-1963) "Toward a One-Paper Town," The New Yorker (February 12, 1949)

Rupert Murdoch standing under the printing presses of the New York Post (November 8, 1985) Protograph by Roger Ressmeyer

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-20

"[I] am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those that they provoke."

— Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Letter to Hester Thrale (July 5, 1783)

Donna Rice and Gary Hart sitting on a dock in Bimini (1987)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-19

"But look, you are hiding a lance under your clothes, surely."

— Aristophanes (circa 446-386 BCE) Lysistrata, scene 6 (411 BCE) translation was done anonymously, but is presumed to have been Oscar Wilde

Mae West as Catherine II, from her play Catherine Was Great (1944)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-18

"I talk about going to [George W. Bush's] Inauguration and crying when he took the oath, 'cause I was so afraid he was going to wreck the economy and muck up the drinking water. The failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind now."

— Sarah Vowell (1969-    ) Interview with John Stewart on The Daily Show (February 21, 2006)

Train crash scene from The Lone Ranger (2013)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-17

"Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them."

— James A. Michener (1907-1997) Space, chapter 6 (1982)

Military V-2 rockets in a hanger at Peenemünde (1944)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-16

"Prejudice is the cause of most of the mistakes of bodies of men. It influences our conduct and warps our judgment, in politics, religion, habits, tastes and opinions."

— James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) "On Prejudice," The American Democrat (1838)

Lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson (May 25, 1911) Postcard by George Henry Farnum

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-15

"The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war."

— Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) "Purely Personal Prejudices," Strictly Personal (1953)

Nazi parade, probably during the Nuremberg Rally of 1934, from Triumph of the Will by Leni Reifenstahl (1935)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-14

"So I the pleasant grape have pulled from the vine, / And yet I languish in great thirst, while others drink the wine."

— Edward de Vere (1550-1604) "Care and Disappointment," Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576)

Amphora depicting Satyrs making wine by Amasis (circa 550-510 BCE)

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-13

"It was better to let the crime of a guilty person go unpunished than to condemn the innocent."

— Trajan (53-117 CE) Quoted by Justice Edward Douglass White in Coffin Vs. United States (March 4, 1895)

The execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas (2008) Photograph by Pat Sullivan

Quote of the Day for 2016-09-12

"We learn nothing by being right."

— Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Haven (1951)

Jack Skellington trying to explain Christmas Town to his admirers, from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)