Todays Thought

In politics, being deceived is no excuse. 

-Leszek Kolakowski, philosopher (23 Oct 1927-2009)

Todays Thought

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. 

-Doris Lessing, novelist, poet, playwright, Nobel laureate (22 Oct 1919-2013)

Todays Thought

Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals, the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great creative scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned if at all. 

-Martin Gardner, mathematician and writer (21 Oct 1914-2010)

Todays Thought

Life is mostly froth and bubble, / Two things stand like stone, / Kindness in another’s trouble, / Courage in your own. 

-Adam Lindsay Gordon, poet (19 Oct 1833-1870)

Todays Thought

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. 

- Oscar Wilde, writer (16 Oct 1854-1900)

Todays Thought

He who has a why can endure any how. 

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

Todays Thought

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set. 

-Lin Yutang, writer and translator (10 Oct 1895-1976)

Todays Thought

It's said that "power corrupts", but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable. 

-David Brin, scientist and science fiction author (b. 6 Oct 1950)

Todays Thought

Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back. 

-Gore Vidal, writer (3 Oct 1925-2012)

Todays Thought

A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. 

-Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Nobel laureate (b. 1 Oct 1924)

Todays Thought

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind. 

-Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (29 Sep 1547-1616)

Todays Thought

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them. 

-T.S. Eliot, poet (26 Sep 1888-1965)

Todays Thought

Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever. 

-Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (22 Sep 1694-1773)

Todays Thought

In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string? 

-Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (10 Sep 1903-1974)

Todays Thought

America has been called a melting pot, but it seems better to call it a mosaic, for in it each nation, people, or race which has come to its shores has been privileged to keep its individuality, contributing at the same time its share to the unified pattern of a new nation. 

-King Baudouin of Belgium (7 Sep 1930-1993)

Todays Thought

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -John Cage, composer (5 Sep 1912-1992)

Todays Thought

There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity. 

-Paul Bourget, novelist (2 Sep 1852-1935)

Todays Thought

When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. 

-Sarah Kendzior, journalist and author (b. 1 Sep 1978)

Todays Thought

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. 

-John Locke, philosopher (29 Aug 1632-1704)

Todays Thought

When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road. 

-William Least Heat-Moon, travel writer (b. 27 Aug 1939)