Quote of the Day for 2016-07-31

"But every time it rains / You're here in my head / Like the sun coming out / Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen / And I don't know when / But just saying it could even make it happen"

— Kate Bush (1958-    ) "Cloudbusting," Hounds of Love (1985)

"The Observatory" at Orgonon in Rangeley, Maine (completed 1950)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-30

"All art, which strove to make the sensations of a moment soul-satisfying, was dimly felt to be irreligious. For art performed what religion only promised."

— James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) The Cream of the Jest, chapter 26 (1917)

Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses by John William Waterhouse (1891)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-29

"At night, before we'd go to sleep, Jack liked to play some records; and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record. The lines he loved to hear were: 'Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.' … There'll never be another Camelot again."

— Jacqueline Kennedy (1929-1994) Quoted by Theodore H. White in "For President Kennedy An Epilogue," Life magazine (December 6, 1963)

Kennedy family leaving the Capitol building after John F. Kennedy's funeral. Left to right: Peter Lawford, Patricia Kennedy Lawford (hidden), Robert F. Kennedy, Jean Kennedy Smith, Caroline Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy, Jr. (November 25, 1963) Photograph by Abbie Rowe

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-28

"Here richly, with ridiculous display, / The Politician's corpse was laid away. / While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged / I wept : for I had longed to see him hanged."

— Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) "Epitaph on the Politician Himself," The London Mercury (November 1922)

Caricature of Whig politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan by William Dent (June 4, 1788)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-27

"In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits which the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils which it engenders."

— Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) Democracy in America, volume 1, chapter 3 (1835)

Front page of the New York Post after Hillary Clinton admonished Senator Ron Johnson during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Benghazi terrorist attack (January 24, 2013)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-26

"Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts."

— Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) The True Believer, part 3, section 91 (1951)

Donald Trump accepting the nomination of the Republican Party at their national convention in Cleveland, Ohio (July 21, 2016) Photograph by Brian Snyder

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-25

"God is a hypothesis constructed by man to help him understand what existence is all about."

— Julian Huxley (1887-1975) "Religion Without God," The Observer (March 31, 1963)

The Ancient of Days, frontispiece to Europe a Prophecy by William Blake (1794)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-24

"Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar about to cross the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line."

— Anthony Kennedy (1936-    ) Observing protesters before the announcement of the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (June 29, 1992) Quoted by Terry Carter in California Lawyer (August 1992)

Lyndon Johnson listens to a tape sent to him by his son-in-law, Captain Charles Robb, from Vietnam (July 31, 1968) Photograph by Jack Kightlinger

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-23

"He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, 'To get practice in being refused.'"

— Diogenes Laërtius (circa 3rd century CE) "Diogenes," Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, book 6, paragraph 49, as translated by Robert Drew Hicks

Diogenes by John William Waterhouse (1882)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-22

"All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments."

— Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) The Medium is the Massage, page 26 (1967)

Pages 4 and 5 from the book, graphic design by Quentin Fiore

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-21

"The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent."

— William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Richard II, act 2, scene 1 (circa 1595)

Hope in a Prison of Despair by Evelyn De Morgan (1887)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-20

"Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience; but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. Here is another; she is washing her feet. It is as if you looked through a key-hole."

— Edgar Degas (1834-1917) Quoted by George Moore in "Degas: The Painter of Modern Life," The Magazine of Art (October 1890)

Woman Having Her Hair Combed by Edgar Degas (circa 1885)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-19

"A wise man does not desire the abundance but rather the sufficiency of things, for former often being harmful, the latter always beneficial."

— Petrarch (1304-1374) De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae, dialogue 43 (circa 1373)

A panel from the Mansfield Place Church in Edinburgh, Scotland, depicting The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins by Phoebe Traquair (1895)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-18

"Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty—so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom."

— Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) Call to Greatness (1954)

Michele Bachmann speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. (February 10, 2011) Photograph by Alex Brandon

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-17

"Credulity and confidence are the constant companions of ignorance."

— Bartholomew Parr (1750–1810) "Quacks and Quack Medicines," The London Medical Dictionary (1809)

Flyer distributed in Dallas, Texas by Robert Surrey and Edwin Walker of the John Birch Society, a few days before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, (November 1963)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-16

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."

— Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859) "A Second Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts," Blackwood's Magazine (November 1839)

The Politics of Fear cover by Barry Blitt for The New Yorker (July 21, 2008)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-15

"And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

— Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) Leviathan, part 1, chapter 13 (1651)

The death of Eric Garner, at the hands of NYPD officers, in Staten Island, New York, as recorded by his friend, Ramsey Orta (July 17, 2014)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-14

"People with a herd instinct hold mediocrity in high esteem."

— Elfriede Jelinek (1946-    ) The Piano Teacher (1983) translated by Joachim Neugroschel

On a Cloudy Day by Koen Demuynck (2012)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-13

"Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers."

— Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) Quoted by E.J. Applewhite in Synergetics Dictionary: The Mind of Buckminster Fuller (1986)

Wellesley College student government president, Hillary Rodham (1969) Photograph by Lee Balterman

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-12

"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority."

— E.B. White (1899-1985) "Coon Tree," The New Yorker (June 14, 1956)

Relief from the Ara Pacis (9 BCE) depicting the goddess Tellus Mater (Mother Earth) flanked by the Aurae (Peaceful Breezes) of sea and land

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-11

"The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs."

— Cicero (106-43 BCE) Orator, chapter 34 (46 BCE)

The first view of Earth from the Moon, taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 (August 23, 1966) two years before the Earthrise photograph

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-10

"If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves."

— Carl Jung (1875-1961) The Integration of the Personality (1939)

Banksy piece on a Bridge Farm Primary School building in Bristol, that the children named after him (June 2016)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-09

"It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy."

— John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) Quoted in "The Loneliness of John D. Rockefeller," Current Literature (November 1906)

Solon and Croesus by Gerard van Honthorst (1624)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-08

"Think before you speak. Read before you think."

— Fran Lebowitz (1950-    ) "Tips for Teens," "My Turn" column in Newsweek (January 1, 1979)

Caricature of an angry Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey (July 4, 2015)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-07

"Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,— / Take, I give it willingly; / For, invisible to thee, / Spirits twain have crossed with me."

— Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862) "The Passage," The Poems of Ludwig Uhland (1831) Translated by Sarah Austin

Charon Ferrying the Shades by Pierre Subleyras (circa 1735-1744)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-06

"The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity."

— P.T. Barnum (1810-1891) "Preserve Your Integrity," The Art of Money Getting (1880)

Romans during the Decadence by Thomas Couture (1847)

quote of the Day for 2016-07-05

"I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people: they go commonly together."

— Robert Burton (1577-1640) The Anatomy of Melancholy, part 1, section 2, member 3. subsection 13 (1621)

The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Lovis Corinth (1897)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-04, Independence Day

"The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a Theatrical Show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that; i.e. all the Glory of it."

— John Adams (1735-1826) Letter to Benjamin Rush (June 11, 1811)

Don't Sign That Declaration, Gentlemen! You'll Hurt Business! by Samuel D. Ehrhart, after John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, from Puck (March 4, 1908)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-03

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

— Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) Demian, chapter 6 (1919)

The Nuremberg trial of high profile Nazi war criminals (November 22, 1945) Front row, left to right: Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel; Back row, left to right: Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, and Fritz Sauckel

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-02

"Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want the one who pretends you are faultless—one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her."

— George Sand (1804-1876) Letter (June 13, 1837)

Mug shot of O.J. Simpson after his arrest (June 17, 1994)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-01

"No man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge."

— Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) "Lord Jim: A Sketch," chapter 7, Blackwood's Magazine (December 1899)

Jacket cover for BUSH by Jean Edward Smith (2016)