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May 6

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
That best portion of a good man's life, — His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. ~ William Wordsworth
2005
If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
2006
Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action. ~ Sigmund Freud (born 6 May 1856)
2007
Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society … may unexpectedly come forth … to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! … such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. … Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. ~ Henry David Thoreau in Walden (died 6 May 1862)
2008
Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. ~ Sigmund Freud
2009
When true simplicity is gain'd
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight
'Till by turning, turning we come round right.
~ Joseph Brackett ~
2010
The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which it may be optimistic about the future of mankind, but in itself it signifies not a little. ~ Sigmund Freud (born 6 May 1856), The Future of an Illusion (1928)
2011
One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the perogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it. But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it itself wants to go. ~ Sigmund Freud
2012
Man found that he was faced with the acceptance of "spiritual" forces, that is to say such forces as cannot be comprehended by the senses, particularly not by sight, and yet having undoubted, even extremely strong, effects. If we may trust to language, it was the movement of the air that provided the image of spirituality, since the spirit borrows its name from the breath of wind (animus, spiritus, Hebrew: ruach = smoke). The idea of the soul was thus born as the spiritual principle in the individual. Observation found the breath of air again in the human breath, which ceases with death; even today we talk of a dying man breathing his last. Now the realm of spirits had opened for man, and he was ready to endow everything in nature with the soul he had discovered in himself. ~ Sigmund Freud
2013
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.
~ Nathaniel Lee ~
2014
Faith is more basic than language or theology. Faith is the response to something which is calling us from the timeless part of our reality. Faith may be encouraged by what has happened in the past, or what is thought to have happened in the past, but the only proof of it is in the future. Scriptures and creeds may come to seem incredible, but faith will still go dancing on. Even though (because it rejects a doctrine) it is now described as "doubt". This, I believe, is the kind of faith that Christ commended.
~ Sydney Carter ~
2015
I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.
~ Sydney Carter ~
2016
All shall be well, I'm telling you, let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.
~ Sydney Carter ~
2017

They buried my body
And they thought I'd gone,
But I am the Dance,
And I still go on.

They cut me down
And I leapt up high;
I am the life
That'll never, never die;
I'll live in you
If you'll live in me —
I am the Lord
Of the Dance, said he.

~ Sydney Carter ~
2018
There's an ocean of darkness and I drown in the night
till I come through the darkness to the ocean of light,
for the light is forever and the light it is free,
"And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.
~ Sydney Carter ~
2019
The secret of liberty is to enlighten men, as that of tyranny is to keep them in ignorance.
~ Maximilien Robespierre ~
2020
If we judge by wealth and power, our times are the best of times; if the times have made us willing to judge by wealth and power, they are the worst of times.
~ Randall Jarrell ~
2021
Come holy harlequin!
Shake the world and shock the hypocrite
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
Let the feast of love begin,
Let the hungry all come in,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
~ Sydney Carter ~
2022
Dreams are windows into the lives our multiversal selves.
~ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ~
  • proposed by Kalki; official release date of the film.
2023
Coming and going by the dance, I see
That what I am not is a part of me.
Dancing is all that I can ever trust,
The dance is all I am, the rest is dust.
I will believe my bones and live by what
Will go on dancing when my bones are not.
~ Sydney Carter ~
2024
The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.
~ Maximilien Robespierre ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…

The Quote of the Day (QOTD) is a prominent feature of the Wikiquote Main Page. Thank you for submitting, reviewing, and ranking suggestions!

Ranking system
4 : Excellent – should definitely be used. (This is the utmost ranking and should be used by any editor for only one quote at a time for each date.)
3 : Very Good – strong desire to see it used.
2 : Good – some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable – but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable – not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
An averaging of the rankings provided to each suggestion produces it’s general ranking in considerations for selection of Quote of the Day. The selections made are usually chosen from the top ranked options existing on the page, but the provision of highly ranked late additions, especially in regard to special events (most commonly in regard to the deaths of famous people, or other major social or physical occurrences), always remain an option for final selections.
Thank you for participating!

Quotes of people born this day, already used as QOTD.

I danced in the morning
When the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon
And the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven
And I danced on the earth,
At Bethlehem
I had my birth.

Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.

~ Sydney Carter ~

Suggestions

[edit]

Simplify, simplify. ~ Henry David Thoreau (died 6 May 1862), Walden (1854)

  • 4 Aphaia 18:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC) * 3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC) I like this but there are now several other options I would rank higher for a while.
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 DanielTom (talk) 11:47, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

The unconscious is the larger circle which includes within itself the smaller circle of the conscious; everything conscious has its preliminary step in the unconscious. ~ Sigmund Freud

  • 2 Kalki 16:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC) 3 Kalki 18:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC) though the concepts seem plausibly presented, I don't actually agree with the choice of terms here
  • 3 InvisibleSun 20:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 05:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Analogies prove nothing, that is quite true, but they can make one feel more at home. ~ Sigmund Freud

He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. ~ Sigmund Freud

  • 3 because man finds a way, even if lips are sealed. Zarbon 04:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires. ~ Sigmund Freud

  • 3 because religion does derive its strength from the people's own instinctual desires. Whether or not it is an illusion is the question, but Freud's perspective is well said in this quote. Zarbon 04:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. ~ Randall Jarrell (born May 6, 1914)

I identify myself, as always,
With something that there's something wrong with,
With something human.
~ Randall Jarrell

Soon we shall know everything the eighteenth century didn't know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us. ~ Randall Jarrell

The people who live in a Golden Age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks. ~ Randall Jarrell

A poem is, so to speak, a way of making you forget how you wrote it. ~ Randall Jarrell

You often feel about something in Shakespeare or Dostoevsky that nobody ever said such a thing, but it's just the sort of thing people would say if they could — is more real, in some sense, than what people do say. If you have given your imagination free rein, let things go as far as they want to go, the world they made for themselves while you watched can have, for you and later watchers, a spontaneous finality. ~ Randall Jarrell

  • 3 InvisibleSun 07:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.

Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution? ~ Maximilien Robespierre (born May 6)

  • 2 because in order to have change, one must endure the many steps of revolution, so to speak. Zarbon 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 04:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Our revolution has made me feel the full force of the axiom that history is fiction and I am convinced that chance and intrigue have produced more heroes than genius and virtue. ~ Maximilien Robespierre (born May 6)

  • 4 because this is rather true. The heroes of time and history have been guided much by the time in which they fell or were born into...chance is truly a major factor. Zarbon 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 16:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC) tactical shift — there are several suggestions which have been made which I prefer to this one.* 3 Kalki 16:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 04:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Death is the beginning of immortality. ~ Maximilien Robespierre (born May 6)

  • 3 because through death, one achieves the one thing one cannot achieve through living; the essence of immortality. Zarbon 04:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 InvisibleSun 04:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 Kalki 23:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
  • 4, but use the sourced translation from the article: "Death is the commencement of immortality." Ficaia (talk) 09:52, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

’T is beauty calls, and glory shows the way. ~ Nathaniel Lee (date of death — birthdate unknown)

Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe. ~ Tony Blair (born May 6, 1953)

Any parent wants the best for their children. I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do. ~ Tony Blair

This is the time… to show that we will stand up for what we know to be right; to show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk; to show, at the moment of decision, that we have the courage to do the right thing. ~ Tony Blair

I danced on the Sabbath
And I cured the lame;
The holy people
Said it was a shame.
They whipped and they stripped
And they hung me on high,
And they left me there
On a Cross to die.
~ Sydney Carter ~
Teach the crippled how to leap,
Throw their crutches on a heap,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
Rock, love, carry it away,
Lift the world up by your levity,
Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
~ Sydney Carter ~
Bibles, legends, history are signposts: they are pointing to the future, not the past. Do not embrace the past or it will turn into an idol.
~ Sydney Carter ~
"With a book and a steeple, with a bell and a key
they would bind it forever, but they can't," said he.
"Oh, the book it will perish and the steeple will fall,
but the light will be shining at the end of it all."
~ Sydney Carter ~
"If we give you a pistol, will you fight for the Lord?"
"But you can't kill the Devil with a gun or a sword!"
"Will you swear on the Bible?" "I will not!" said he,
"For the truth is more holy than the book, to me."
~ Sydney Carter ~
There's a light that is shining in the heart of a man,
it's the light that was shining when the world began.
There's a light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew
and a light that is shining, friend, in me and in you.
~ Sydney Carter ~
So what do you believe in?
Nothing fixed or final,
all the while I
travel a miracle. I doubt,
and yet
I walk upon the water.
~ Sydney Carter ~
Your holy hearsay is not evidence.
Give me the good news in the present tense.
What happened nineteen hundred years ago
May not have happened.
How am I to know?
So shut your Bibles up and show me how
The Christ you talk about
Is living now.
~ Sydney Carter ~


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