Todays Thought

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)

Todays Thought

What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? 

-Ursula K. Le Guin, author (21 Oct 1929-2018)

Todays Thought

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. 

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (15 Oct 1844-1900)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Todays Thought

Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought. 

-Graham Greene, novelist and journalist (2 Oct 1904-1991)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Todays Thought

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is. 

-Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (14 Sep 1917-1986)

Todays Thought

You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty. 

-Jessica Mitford, author, journalist, and civil rights activist (11 Sep 1917-1996)

Todays Thought

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back. 

-Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (9 Sep 1828-1910)

Todays Thought

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. 

-Edith Sitwell, poet (7 Sep 1887-1964)

Todays Thought

The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes. 

-Mary Renault, novelist (4 Sep 1905-1983)

Todays Thought

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action. 

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (28 Aug 1749-1832)

Todays Thought

If an animal does something, they call it instinct. If we do exactly the same thing for the same reason, they call it intelligence. 

-Will Cuppy, humorist and journalist (23 Aug 1884-1949)

Todays Thought

Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesn't make a corporation a terrorist. 

-Winona LaDuke, activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer (b. 18 Aug 1959)