Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.
-Pablo Picasso (25 Oct 1881-1973)
2026/10/26
2026/10/21
Todays Thought
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
-Ursula K. Le Guin, author (21 Oct 1929-2018)
2026/10/15
Todays Thought
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (15 Oct 1844-1900)
2026/10/08
Todays Thought
In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person with solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs.
-Daniel J Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1 Oct 1914-2004)
2026/10/07
Todays Thought
The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
-Henry Agard Wallace, 33rd Vice President of the US (7 Oct 1888-1965)
2026/10/06
Todays Thought
It's good to have money and the things that money will buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money won't buy.
-George H. Lorimer, editor (6 Oct 1867-1937)
2026/10/05
Todays Thought
The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.
-Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US president (4 Oct 1822-1893)
2026/10/02
Todays Thought
Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.
-Graham Greene, novelist and journalist (2 Oct 1904-1991)
2026/09/30
Todays Thought
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (30 Sep 1928-2016)
2026/09/21
Todays Thought
A time will come when a politician who has wilfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.
-H.G. Wells, writer (21 Sep 1866-1946)
2026/09/17
Todays Thought
You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.
-Ken Kesey, novelist (17 Sep 1935-2001)
2026/09/15
Todays Word
villein
PRONUNCIATION:
(VIL-uhn) 
MEANING:
noun: A peasant legally bound to a feudal lord, owing labor or dues in return for the use of land.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French vilein (peasant), from Latin villanus (farm worker), from villa (country estate, farm). Earliest documented use: before 1325.
NOTES:
The villein worked a plot. The villain plotted. How did a farm worker become a villain? They were originally forms of the same word. The upper classes associated peasants with crude manners, and associated them with bad character. Over time, a word for a country dweller became a word for a scoundrel. By the end of this linguistic journey, the country bumpkin had become Dr. No.
USAGE:
“The landowners prosper across the cycles while the serfs and villeins do the work.”
Donald Coxe; George W., Villain; Maclean’s (Toronto, Canada); Apr 8, 2002.
See more usage examples of villein in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.
Donald Coxe; George W., Villain; Maclean’s (Toronto, Canada); Apr 8, 2002.
See more usage examples of villein in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.
Todays Thought
Some people with great virtues are disagreeable, while others with great vices are delightful.
-Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (15 Sep 1613-1680)
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