January 5

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense. ~ Carl Sagan

• selected by Kalki

2005

I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do. ~ Helen Keller

• selected by Kalki

2006

Evil spreads with the wind; truth is capable of speading even against it. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda (born 5 January 1893)

• proposed by UDScott

2007

All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. ~ Principia Discordia

• proposed by Kalki (for the anniversary of discovery of the "dwarf planet" Eris, named after the patron goddess of the Discordians)

2008

A dreaded society is not a civilized society. The most progressive and powerful society in the civilized sense, is a society which has recognized its ethos, and come to terms with the past and the present, with religion and science, with modernism and mysticism, with materialism and spirituality; a society free of tension, a society rich in culture. Such a society cannot come with hocus-pocus formulas and with fraud. It has to flow from the depth of a divine search. ~ Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (born 5 January 1928)

• proposed by Kalki

2009

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. In an instant age, perhaps we must relearn the ancient truth that patience, too, has its victories. ~ Konrad Adenauer (born 5 January 1876)

• proposed by Zarbon

2010

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection — not an invitation for hypnosis. ~ Umberto Eco

• proposed by Kalki

2011

In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity. ~ Konrad Adenauer

• proposed by Zarbon

2012

Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all. ~ Umberto Eco

• proposed by Kalki

2013

Learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• proposed by bystander

2014

The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• proposed by Kalki

2015

I am guiding you to seek truth from the facts of the historical conditions of our society and to identify the problems. The correct solutions will come with the correct identification of the problems.

~ Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ~

• proposed by Kalki

2016

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed. He doesn't boast of his own death or of others'. But he does not repent. He suffers and keeps his mouth shut; if anything, others then exploit him, making him a myth, while he, the man worthy of esteem, was only a poor creature who reacted with dignity and courage in an event bigger than he was.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• proposed by Kalki

2017

Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes. The day after the fall of Khrushchev, the editors of Pravda, Izvestiia, the heads of the radio and television were replaced; the army wasn't called out. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• proposed by Kalki

2018

How should we deal with intrusions of fiction into life, now that we have seen the historical impact that this phenomenon can have? … Reflecting on these complex relationships between reader and story, fiction and life, can constitute a form of therapy against the sleep of reason, which generates monsters.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• proposed by Kalki

2019

Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.

~ Hayao Miyazaki ~

• proposed by Zarbon

2020

Incredulity doesn't kill curiosity; it encourages it. Though distrustful of logical chains of ideas, I loved the polyphony of ideas. As long as you don't believe in them, the collision of two ideas — both false — can create a pleasing interval, a kind of diabolus in musica. I had no respect for some ideas people were willing to stake their lives on, but two or three ideas that I did not respect might still make a nice melody. Or have a good beat, and if it was jazz, all the better.

~ Umberto Eco ~ in ~ Foucault's Pendulum ~

• proposed by Kalki

2021

Philosophies can be judged, at most, on the grounds of the perspicacity with which they decide that something is worthy of becoming the starting point for a global explanatory hypothesis. Thus I do not think that the sign (or any other suitable object for a general semiotics) is a mere figment.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• proposed by Kalki

2022

A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has a logic, however twisted it might be. The lunatic, on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.

~ Umberto Eco ~ in ~ Foucault's Pendulum ~

• proposed by Kalki

2023

A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• proposed by bystander

2024

Whatever the rhythm was, luck rewarded us, because, wanting connections, we found connections — always, everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded in a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else…

~ Umberto Eco ~ in ~ Foucault's Pendulum ~

• proposed by Kalki

2025

Rank or add further suggestions…

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DOB: Konrad Adenauer · Umberto Eco · Marilyn Manson · Hayao Miyazaki · Paramahansa Yogananda

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Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. ~ Calvin Coolidge (Date of death)

• 3 ~ UDScott 00:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• 0 Kalki 00:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC) I would normally rank this a 3, if I were confident of it's authorship, but though this has been attributed to Coolidge, I have found no definitive source; though in one book I actually found the definite statement that he said this on the 4th of July 1872, this would be quite extraordinary, as that was the day he was born. Some attributions state that entrepreneur Ray Kroc used it as an "inspirational dictum" but not clearly stating any author, and thus I am doubtful of attributing it to Coolidge, and reluctant to use it until authorship is more clearly determined.
• 3 Zarbon 17:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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Reality is the original Rorschach. ~ Principia Discordia

• 3 Kalki 00:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
• 1 Zarbon 17:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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If people really stopped and realized how much art and creative people move the world versus politics and religion, I mean it's not even up for debate. An artist at least creates things, puts things into the world. Whereas these other people are destroying things, taking things out of the world. ~ Marilyn Manson

• 3 Zarbon 15:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
• 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 13:06, 3 January 2015 (UTC) 3 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC) still have a strong lean toward 3 or 4, but have different pref for this year (2015)
• 2 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
• 4 24.207.61.64 07:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

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Sometimes we admire the feathers and ignore the dying bird. ~ Marilyn Manson

• 3 Zarbon 15:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: This echoes what Thomas Paine said about Edmund Burke: "He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird." (Rights of Man; quote not currently on the page for Paine). - InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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...anything that is a church is really just far too close minded. ~ Marilyn Manson

• 2 Zarbon 15:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• 1 Triviaa 04:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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Who sows fear, reaps weapons. ~ Friedrich Dürrenmatt

• 3 Zarbon 06:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 3.
• 2 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
• 3 24.207.61.64 07:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

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We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things. We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation. ~ Hayao Miyazaki

• 4 Zarbon 06:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• 3 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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To me, through every season dearest;
In every scene, by day, by night,
Thou, present to my mind appearest
A quenchless star, forever bright;
My solitary sole delight:
Where’er I am, by shore, at sea,
I think of thee. ~ David Macbeth Moir

• 2 Zarbon 06:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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When you fly a balloon you don't file a flight plan; you go where the wind goes. You feel like part of the air. You almost feel like part of eternity, and you just float along. ~ Jeannette Piccard

• 3 Zarbon 06:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
• 3 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong. ~ Stephen Decatur

• 3 Zarbon 06:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
• 1 24.207.61.64 07:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

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The children play
At hide and seek
About the monument
To Speke.
And why should the dead
Explorer mind
Who has nothing to seek
And nothing to find? ~ Humbert Wolfe

• 2 referring to the monument of John Hanning Speke. Zarbon 06:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
• 3 Kalki 14:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• 3 InvisibleSun 21:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

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Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means... ~ Umberto Eco

• 3 bystander (talk) 02:25, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 18:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

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There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics.

~ Umberto Eco ~ in ~ Foucault's Pendulum ~

• 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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We invented a nonexistent Plan, and They not only believed it was real but convinced themselves that They had been part of it for ages, or rather They identified the fragments of their muddled mythology as moments of our Plan, moments joined in a logical, irrefutable web of analogy, semblance, suspicion. But if you invent a plan and others carry it out, it's as if the Plan exists. At that point it does exist. Hereafter, hordes of Diabolicals will swarm through the world in search of the map. We offered a map to people who were trying to overcome a deep private frustration. What frustration? Belbo's first file suggested it to me: There can be no failure if there really is a Plan. Defeated you may be, but never through any fault of your own. To bow to a cosmic will is no shame. You are not a coward; you are a martyr.

~ Umberto Eco ~ in ~ Foucault's Pendulum ~

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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It is easy for the philosopher to justify death: the we must plunge into obscurity is one of the clearest things in the world. What obsesses the philosopher is not the naturalness of the end, it is the mystery of the beginning. We can lack interest in an eternity that will follow us, but we cannot elude the anguished question of which eternity preceded us: the eternity of matter or the eternity of God?

~ Umberto Eco ~ in ~ The Island of the Day Before ~

• 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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A general semiotics studies the whole of the human signifying activity — languages — and languages are what constitutes human beings as such, that is, as semiotic animals. It studies and describes languages through languages. By studying the human signifying activity it influences its course. A general semiotics transforms, for the very fact of its theoretical claim, its own object.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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Epistemological thinkers connected with quantum methodology have rightly warned against an ingenuous transposition of physical categories into the fields of ethics and psychology (for example. the identification of indeterminacy with moral freedom). Hence, it would not be justified to understand my formulation as making an analogy between the structures of the work of art and the supposed structures of the world. Indeterminacy, complementarity, noncausality are not modes of being in the physical world, but systems for describing it in a convenient way.

~ Umberto Eco ~

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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A philosophy is not a science, because its assertions cannot be empirically tested … Philosophical entities exist only insofar as they have been philosophically posited. Outside their philosophical framework, the empirical data that a philosophy organizes lose every possible unity and cohesion.

~ Umberto Eco ~

3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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The universe is peeled like an onion, and an onion is all peel.

~ Umberto Eco ~ in ~ Foucault's Pendulum ~

• 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 00:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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