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)

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)

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)

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)

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-27

"If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art."

— Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) "New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea," (1946) Style and Idea (1950)

Gentlemen Prefer Blonds by Marco Battaglini (2013) after Allegory of the Arts by Pompeo Batoni (1740)

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)

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: 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

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)

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)

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

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)

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-20

"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."

— Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) "Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics," The International Monthly (July 1901)

The Flammarion Engraving by an unknown artist, from L'Atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire (1888)

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-19

"It's with us only that they make battles. It is we who are the material of war."

— Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) Under Fire, chapter 24 (1916)

Gassed by John Singer Sargent (1919)

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-18

"BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband."

— Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) The Devil's Dictionary, "B" section (1906)

Portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent (1884)

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-17

"Debts and lies are generally mixed together."

— François Rabelais (circa 1483-1553) Gargantua and Pantagruel, book 3, chapter 5 (1546)

Salanio and Salarino meet Shylock by Sir John Gilbert (1873) from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

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)

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

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)

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-13

"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better."

— Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth (1852)

Ulysses and the Sirens by Herbert James Draper (1909)

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)

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

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-10

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

— H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) "A Few Pages of Notes," The Smart Set (January 1915)

Donald Trump speaking at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania (April 25, 2016) Photograph by Mark Pynes for The Patriot-News

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)

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-08, Mother's Day

"All I am or can be I owe to my angel-mother."

— Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Quoted by William Herndon to George Alfred Townsend in The real life of Abraham Lincoln (1867)

Hagar and Ishmael by Jean Charles Cazin (1880)

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)

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

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-05

"Try to learn something about everything, and everything about something."

— Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) A favorite maxim, inscribed on his memorial in Ealing (1902)

Alma Mater statue (Athena) on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University (1904)

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

Quote of the Day for 2016-05-03

"In the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand."

— Thomas Malory (1405-1471) Le Morte d'Arthur, book 1, chapter 23 (1485)

Cartoon by David Borchart for The New Yorker (March 31, 2014)

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)

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)