Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Quote for September 30, 2009

We should be therefore supporting a larger Europe, and in so doing we should strive to expand the zone of peace and prosperity in the world which is the necessary foundation for a stable international system in which our leadership could be fruitfully exercised.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Bertrand Russell: Quote for September 29, 2009

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.' This last is peculiarly dastardly since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practiced in a greater or less degree in the schools of every civilized country.
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Monday, September 28, 2009

Oscar Wilde: Quote for September 28, 2009

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.
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Sunday, September 27, 2009

Benito Mussolini: Quote for September 27, 2009

Democracy is talking itself to death. The people do not know what they want; they do not know what is the best for them. There is too much foolishness, too much lost motion. I have stopped the talk and the nonsense. I am a man of action. Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.
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Saturday, September 26, 2009

St. Augustine: Quote for September 26, 2009

If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.
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Friday, September 25, 2009

C. R. MacNamara: Quote for September 25, 2009

Any world that can produce the Taj Mahal, William Shakespeare, and striped toothpaste can't be all bad.
from: One, Two, Three (1961)
James Cagney acted as C. R. MacNamara

Thursday, September 24, 2009

David Rockefeller: Quote for September 24, 2009

For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
from: Memoirs (Book-2002)

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Henry David Thoreau: Quote for September 23, 2009

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
Click here to read Thoreau's Walden, from which many of his quotes are taken.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Patrick Swayze: Quote for September 22, 2009

I have a great deal of faith in faith; if you believe something strongly enough, it becomes true for you. I would like to believe that my father is right here with me in this room and that he's my guardian angel, that there's life after death -- because if there isn't, why are we here? I don't believe that just flesh and bones can contain from the point of view of physics this very real recorded energy inside of us. Whether it's true or not, we need to believe it.
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Monday, September 21, 2009

Stan & Ollie: Quote for September 21, 2009

Ollie: To think that this would happen to me, just at a time in my life when I needed something real, something wholesome, something tender.

Stan: Why don't you try a nice fat juicy steak?
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy acted as Stan & Ollie

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Alan Alda: Quote for September 20, 2009

Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You cannot get there by bus, only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.
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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Dr. Royer-Collard: Quote for September 19, 2009

My colleagues have called me old-fashioned, even barbaric. But here we favor an aggressive course of treatment. I do not seek popularity or renown, Monsieur Debene. Mine is a higher mission. To take God's tiny blunders and those He has forsaken and condition them with the same force, the same rigor one would employ to train a feral dog or a wild stallion.

This may not be pretty but it is mercy, just the same. A few more months of this, and he'll be fine.
from: Quills (2000)
Michael Caine acted as Dr. Royer-Collard

Friday, September 18, 2009

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Quote for September 18, 2009

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Harrison Carter MacWhite: Quote for September 17, 2009

Deong: You always make dictators strong then wonder why you are not loved.

Deong, I don't approve of dictators, any more than you do, but if supporting dictators helps to keep the free world free, we'll support them.
from: The Ugly American (1963)
Marlon Brando acted as Harrison Carter MacWhite
Eiji Okada appears in this clip acting as Deong.

Does the term "free world" have the same meaning today as when this film was made in 1963?

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla: Quote for September 16, 2009

My children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once… Will not you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines!
On September 16th Mexicans celebrate Independence Day. On this day in 1810 Miguel Hidalgo, a Catholic priest, spoke to his people in front of a Church in the small town of Delores. He called for them to free themselves from Spain. His actual words are unknown. The above quote is one version of his speech. It took over a decade of war before the Spanish crown recognized Mexican independence on September 27, 1821.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Woodrow Wilson: Quote for September 15, 2009

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget that errand.
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Monday, September 14, 2009

Helen Keller: Quote for September 14, 2009

If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009

Albert Einstein: Quote for September 13, 2009

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Voltaire: Quote for September 12, 2009

You see many stars at night in the sky but find them not when the sun rises; can you say that there are no stars in the heaven of day? So, O man! because you behold not God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
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