en.wikiquote.org

July 3 - Wikiquote

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
You don't understand. I could'a had class. I could'a been a contender. ~ Marlon Brando as "Terry Malloy" in On the Waterfront (recent death)
2005
The splendor of life forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. ~ Franz Kafka (born 3 July 1883)
2006
I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead. ~ Tom Stoppard (born 3 July 1937)
2007
We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. ~ Franz Kafka
2008
Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. ~ Franz Kafka (date of birth)
2009
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached. ~ Franz Kafka
2010
I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No... not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening, but love that... overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable — like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. Love — like there has never been in a play. ~ Tom Stoppard in Shakespeare in Love
2011
You can only be young once but you can be immature forever. ~ Dave Barry
2012
An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.
~ Tom Stoppard ~
2013
2014
2015
  • proposed by Lyle for an anniversary of the film's release in 1985; used on the 30th anniversary.
2016
  • Added to QOTD array in tribute to Wiesel, after his recent death.
2017
2018
  • proposed by Kalki, in regard to his recent death.
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.
~ Tom Stoppard ~
2026
Rank or add further suggestions…

Ranking system:

4 : Excellent - should definitely be used.
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.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. ~ The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka born that day.

  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 08:22, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 121a0012 June 27, 2005 03:52 (UTC) (But italicize title.)
  • 2 A famous line, but still a relatively obscure and simply puzzling statement to many people. ~ Kalki
  • 2 InvisibleSun 21:20, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 04:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting. ~ Tom Stoppard (born July 3, 1937)

  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:20, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 22:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 Zarbon 04:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC) ? I don't get it.

I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself. ~ Tom Stoppard

  • 3 InvisibleSun 21:20, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 22:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC) with a slight lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 04:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

War is capitalism with the gloves off and many who go to war know it but they go to war because they don't want to be a hero. It takes courage to sit down and be counted. ~ Tom Stoppard

We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else. ~ Tom Stoppard in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (film)

England is home to every shade of political exile. They don't give asylum out of respect for asylum-seekers, but out of respect for themselves. They invented personal liberty, and they know it, and they did it without having any theories about it. They value liberty because it's liberty. ~ Tom Stoppard

Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins. ~ Tom Stoppard

Love denied blights the soul we owe to God. ~ Tom Stoppard in Shakespeare in Love

My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers. ~ Tom Stoppard

  • 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 00:00, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 01:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC) This quote sounds like it's supposed to be important but I guess I just don't understand Tom Stoppard.
The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.
The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the master’s whiplash.
~ Franz Kafka ~
The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last day.
~ Franz Kafka ~
In the struggle between yourself and the world, back the world.
~ Franz Kafka ~