September 12

September 12 Quotes of the day from previous years:


 * 2003
 * Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true. ~ Niels Bohr


 * 2004
 * The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. ~ Carl Sagan


 * 2005
 * The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of the truth — that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one. ~ H. L. Mencken (born 12 September 1880)
 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2006
 * When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either. ~ Jesse Owens (born 12 September 1913)
 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2007
 * Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right... The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds. ~ H. L. Mencken (born 12 September 1880)
 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2008
 * If man had more of a sense of humor, things might have turned out differently. ~ Stanisław Lem (born 12 September 1921)
 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2009
 * You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down. ~ Stanisław Lem
 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2010
 * It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous. ~ Charles Dudley Warner
 * proposed by Zarbon


 * 2011
 * The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that's where it's at. ~ Jesse Owens
 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2012


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2013


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2014


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2015


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2016


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2017


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2018


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2019


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2020


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2021


 * proposed by Kalki; in regard to the anniversary of his death.


 * 2022


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2023


 * proposed by Kalki


 * 2024 : Rank or add further suggestions…

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:


 * Explanations exist; they have existed for all times, for there is always an easy solution to every human problems — neat, plausible, and wrong. ~ H. L. Mencken (used on 17 May 2004)


 * One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent. ~ H. L. Mencken (used 20 August 2004)


 * Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way. ~ Stanisław Lem (used 29 March 2006)

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ~ H. L. Mencken
 * All of us, if we are of reflective habit, like and admire men whose fundamental beliefs differ radically from our own. But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or count himself lost. … All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
 * Used 1 April 2017; proposed by

Suggestions
Dalton McGuinty. He's an evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet. (sorry) ~ Ontario Progressive Conservative Party (from a press release, released this day)
 * 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 19:11, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 1. Quite funny but not really very thought-provoking. David | Talk 23:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1 InvisibleSun 00:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1 Zarbon 22:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway. ~ Jesse Owens (born 12 September 1913)
 * 3 Kalki 09:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 2 InvisibleSun 00:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1 Zarbon 22:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it; they measure their success in life by their ability to buy it. ~ Charles Dudley Warner
 * 3 Zarbon 19:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * 3 InvisibleSun 21:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 2 Kalki 23:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The war of good and evil present in all religions does not always end, in every faith, with the victory of good, but in every one it establishes a clear order of existence. The sacred as well as the profane rests on that universal order... ~ Stanisław Lem
 * 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

He who has had, has been, but he who hasn't been, has been had. ~ Stanisław Lem
 * 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Plentitude, when too plentitudinous, was worst than destitution, for — obviously— what could one do, if there was nothing one could not?. ~ Stanisław Lem
 * 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

We have wholly abandoned ourselves to the mercy of technological progress. The roles are now reversed: humanity becomes, for technology, a means, an instrument for achieving a goal unknown and unknowable. ~ Stanisław Lem
 * 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.