Todays Thought

The hands that help are better far 

Than lips that pray.

Love is the ever gleaming star

That leads the way,

That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss,

But on a paradise in this. 

-Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

Todays Thought

No amount of belief makes something a fact. 

-James Randi, magician and skeptic (7 Aug 1928-2020)

Todays Thought

What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give. 

-P.D. James (Phyllis Dorothy James), novelist (3 Aug 1920-2014)

Todays Thought

We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong. 

-Karl Popper, philosopher and professor (28 Jul 1902-1994)

Todays Thought

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. 

-Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (25 Jul 1902-1983)

Todays Thought

Only the stupid steal from the rich. The clever steal from the poor. The law usually protects the rich. 

-Carsten Jensen, author (b. 24 Jul 1952)

Todays Thought

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph. 

-Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia (23 Jul 1892-1975)

Todays Thought

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. 

-Edmund Hillary, mountaineer and explorer (20 Jul 1919-2008)

Todays Thought

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. 

-Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (21 Jul 1899-1961)

Todays Thought

There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind. 

-Hannah Senesh, poet, playwright, and paratrooper (17 Jul 1921-1944)

Todays Thought

We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full. 

-Marcel Proust, novelist (10 Jul 1871-1922)

Todays Thought

I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy ... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything -- you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. 

-Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (7 Jul 1907-1988)

Todays Thought

It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard. 

-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1 Jul 1742-1799)

Todays Thought

And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. 

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (29 Jun 1900-1944)

Todays Thought

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members. 

-Pearl S. Buck, Nobelist novelist (26 Jun 1892-1973)

Todays Thought

An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. 

-Orlando Aloysius Battista, chemist and author (20 Jun 1917-1995)

Todays Thought

Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength. 

-Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (19 Jun 1623-1662)

Todays Thought

The [Nobel] prize is such an extraordinary honor. It might seem unfair, however, to reward a person for having so much pleasure over the years, asking the maize plant to solve specific problems and then watching its responses. 

-Barbara McClintock, scientist, Nobel laureate (16 Jun 1902-1992)

Todays Thought

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. 

-Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)

Todays Thought

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. 

-Saul Bellow, writer, Nobel laureate (10 Jun 1915-2005)