Quote of the Day for 2015-11-30

"It's the man who dares to take, who is independent, not he who gives."

— D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) Letter to John Middleton Murry, November 27, 1913

Maru's version of If it Fits I Sits (March 2010)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-29

"How long halt ye between two opinions?"

— The Book of Kings, book 1, chapter 18, paragraph 21

The Triumph of Elijah Over the Prophets of Baal by Domenico Fetti (circa 1622)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-28

"No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing."

— Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) "Harvard: The Future," The Atlantic Monthly, September 1936

Get To Work Demotivational Poster

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-27

"'Frank and explicit'—that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others."

— Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) Sybil; or, The Two Nations, book 4, chapter 1

Napalm Girl by Banksy, paint on cartridge paper (2004)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-26

"A cult is a religion with no political power."

— Tom Wolfe (1931-    ) "Tom Wolfe's Seventies," Esquire, December 1979, page 39

Jim Jones, cult leader of the Peoples Temple, at an I-Hotel evictions protest in San Francisco (January 1977)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-25

"It is only to the happy that tears are a luxury."

— Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Lallah Rookh, "The Fire Worshippers," part 6

Sean Young as Rachael, on the verge of tears in Blade Runner (1982)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-24

"A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain."

— Mark Twain (1835-1910) Attributed

Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter and Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-23

"Weak men are apt to be cruel."

— George Savile (1633-1695) Moral Thoughts and Reflections

Portrait of Adolph Hitler in the office of his Berghof residence (circa 1936) (photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-22

"It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others."

— Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) A Room of One's Own, chapter 3

The Temptation of St. Anthony by Joos van Craesbeeck (circa 1650)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-21

"No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it well, ever loses his self-respect."

— George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) The Doctor's Dilemma, Preface

Original Adbusters poster for the Occupy Wall Street protest (2011)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-20

"Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts."

— Abel Stevens (1815-1897) Madame de Staël

Nelson Rockefeller being impolite to hecklers at a campaign stop in Binghamton, NY (September 16, 1976)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-19

"When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest."

— William Hazlitt (1778-1830) "On The Spirit of Controversy," London Weekly Review, January 1830

Joseph Barham and Ariel Owens walk arm-in-arm after getting married at the San Francisco City Hall (April 2015) (Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-18

"The Nonconformist Conscience makes cowards of us all."

— Sir Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) "A Note on George the Fourth," The Yellow Book, October 1894

Graffiti piece by Banksy, on the rear wall of Kaze Shabu Shabu restaurant (corner of Harrison Ave. and Essex St.) in Boston's Chinatown (May 14, 2010). Nonconformist Conscience definition.

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-17

"You could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted; but you must share a joke with some one else."

— Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) "Virginibus Puerisque," Cornhill Magazine, August 1876

Bad puns must also be shared.

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-16

"Although we talk so much about coincidence we do not really believe in it. In our heart of hearts we think better of the universe, we are secretly convinced that it is not such a slipshod, haphazard affair, that everything in it has meaning."

— J.B. Priestley (1894-1984) "A Coincidence"

The so-called unsinkable Titanic, docked in the port of Southhampton prior to its fateful maiden voyage (April 1912)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-15

"I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry Martini."

— Charles Butterworth (1899-1946) After falling into the pool at the Garden of Allah Hotel

Charles Butterworth as Harvey Clemp in Hollywood Party (1934)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-14

"A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) Quoted by Wendell Willkie during an America's Town Meeting of the Air broadcast, at The Town Hall in New York City, January 6, 1938.

Urban Renewal: Demolition of Pennsylvania Station in New York City (Photograph by Alexander Hatos, December 8, 1965)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-13

"Parsons always seem to be specially horrified about things like sunbathing and naked bodies. They don't mind poverty and misery and cruelty to animals nearly so much."

— Susan Ertz (1894-1985) The Story of Julian

Starbucks 2015 holiday cups, which some Christian conservatives allege is part of the so-called "War on Christmas." (Photograph courtesy of Starbucks)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-12

"[Unitarianism is] a feather bed to catch a falling Christian."

— Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) Quoted by Charles Darwin in a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker, May 11, 1859

The chalice logo of Unitarianism in the United Kingdom.

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-11

"Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is invariably Judas who writes the biography."

— Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) "The True Function and Value of Criticism," The Nineteenth Century, July 1890

Lauren Weisberger's 2003 roman à clef novel about her time at Vogue and being abused by Anna Wintour.

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-10

"[A friend is] one soul abiding in two bodies."

— Aristotle (384-322 BCE) Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, book 5

David Bowie and Tilda Swinton on the set of The Stars (Are Out Tonight), photographed by Floria Sigismondi (2013)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-09

"Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?"

— Stanislaw J. Lec (1909-1966) Unkempt Thoughts

Dominique Pinon as Louison in the dystopian black comedy Delicatessen (1991)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-08

"If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city."

— C.C. Colton (1780-1832) Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words, Reflection #334

Illustration for Aesop's fable, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse by Arthur Rackham (1912)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-07

"All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased. If any one thing is wrong with the movie industry today, it is the unrelenting effort to astonish."

— Clive James (1939-    ) "Postcard from L.A.," The Observer, June 10, 1979

Impressive pyrotechnics from the movie Bedazzled (2000)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-06

"He, who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all."

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Aids to Reflection, "Moral and Religious Aphorisms," Aphorism 25

Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker during a PTL broadcast (circa 1986)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-05

"What is childhood but a series of happy delusions."

— Sydney Smith (1771-1845) Quoted by Lady Saba Holland in A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith

Promotional image from The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey (1998)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-04

"'Charm'—which means the power to effect work without employing brute force—is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm."

— Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) The Task of Social Hygiene, chapter 3

John-Paul Goude photograph of Grace Jones for the Nightclubbing album cover (1981)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-03

"We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Essays: Second Series, Essay V: "Gifts"

President Barack Obama signs the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law with fellow Democrats in the East Room of the White House. (March 23, 2010) (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-02

"Fame is something which must be won; honor is something which must not be lost."

— Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) The Wisdom of Life

Cover of The Observer on October 14, 2012, after Lance Armstrong was stripped of his cycling titles.

Quote of the Day for 2015-11-01

"It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions."

— Marcel Proust (1871-1922) Remembrance of Things Past, "Within a Budding Grove"

Screenshot of President George W. Bush announcing the start of the Iraq War on national television (March 19, 2003)