Good Morning! Here are your daily birthday quotations...
Thomas Paine (1737 –
1809):
“Independence is my
happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my
country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
and
“Those who expect to
reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of
supporting it.”
and
“The mind once
enlightened cannot again become dark.”
William Henry
Harrison (1773 – 1841):
“The only legitimate
right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.”
Samuel J. Tilden
(1814 – 1886):
“I still trust in the
people.”
Natsume Sōseki (1867
– 1916):
“I believe that words
uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those words which
express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words
are not meant to stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.”
and
“I do not want your
admiration now, because I do not want your insults in the future. I bear with
my loneliness now, in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead. You
see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age,
so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves.”
and
“It is painfully easy
to define human beings. They are beings who, for no good reason at all, create
their own unnecessary suffering.”
Amy Lowell (1874 –
1925):
“All books are either
dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you
can drug, with words.”
and
“For books are more
than books, they are the life
The very heart and
core of ages past,
The reason why men
lived and worked and died,
The essence and
quintessence of their lives.”
Dean Rusk (1909 –
1994):
“The usual cause of
evil in the world is that at any given time half the people in the world are
awake.”
Brendan Behan (1923 –
1964):
“It's not that the
Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for
everything and everybody.”
and
“I'm a drinker with
writing problems.”
J.M. Coetzee (1940 -
):
“Truth is not spoken
in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love. The gaze of
love is not deluded. It sees what is best in the beloved even when what is best
in the beloved finds it hard to emerge into the light.”
and
“The secret of
happiness is not doing what we like but in liking what we do.”
and
“He continues to teach
because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him
humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world.”
Joseph Stiglitz (1943
- ):
"The top 1 percent
have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles,
but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding
that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout
history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too
late."
Alice Walker (1944 -
):
“No person is your
friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
and
“Deliver me from
writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can
write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it
for.”
and
“HELPED are those who
are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and
the joys of self-discovery will be constant.
HELPED are those who
love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for
to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity.
HELPED are those who
live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every
day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long.
HELPED are those who
love others unsplit off from their faults; to them will be given clarity of
vision.
HELPED are those who
create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own
conception, and realize an partnership in the creation of the Universe that
keeps them responsible and cheerful.
HELPED are those who
love the Earth, their mother, and who willingly suffer that she may not die; in
their grief over her pain they will weep rivers of blood, and in their joy in
her lively response to love, they will converse with the trees.
HELPED are those
whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the
restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that
every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a
child.
HELPED are those who
risk themselves for others' sakes; to them will be given increasing
opportunities for ever greater risks. Theirs will be a vision of the word in
which no one's gift is despised or lost.
HELPED are those who
strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that in any confrontation
their first thoughts will never be of violence or of war.
HELPED are those
whose every act is a prayer for peace; on them depends the future of the world.
HELPED are those who
forgive; their reward shall be forgiveness of every evil done to them. It will
be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth.
HELPED are those who
are shown the existence of the Creator's magic in the Universe; they shall
experience delight and astonishment without ceasing.
HELPED are those who
laugh with a pure heart; theirs will be the company of the jolly righteous.
HELPED are those who
love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the
animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any
parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who
love the lesbian, the gay, and the straight, as they love the sun, the moon,
and the stars. None of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any
parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who
love the broken and the whole; none of their children, nor any of their
ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who
do not join mobs; theirs shall be the understanding that to attack in anger is
to murder in confusion.
HELPED are those who
find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence
of another--plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a
multitude of the timid.
HELPED are those who
lose their fear of death; theirs is the power to envision the future in a blade
of grass.
HELPED are those who
love and actively support the diversity of life; they shall be secure in their
differences.
HELPED are those who
KNOW.”
Brian Greene (1963 -
):
“Science is the
process that takes us from confusion to understanding...”
and
“The boldness of
asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept
the answers.”
and
“When kids look up to
great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization
will jump to the next level”
