Category: Quote for the Day

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Quote of the Day — Robert A. Heinlein

“… 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.” “ Robert A. Heinlein in Revolt in 2100

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Quote of the Day – Oscar Wilde

  1. Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence. I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability”.  ~~ Oscar Wilde

I don’t generally put out two postings a day, but I stumbled across this quote I had queued up and I could not resist.

Heaven forbid I should question such a wordsmith as Oscar Wilde so I am assuming the ambiguity is intentional. Did God overestimate his own ability  or that of Man?

Want to know more about Oscar Wilde: Oscar Wilde – His Life and Confessions by Frank Harris

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Quote of the Day – Thomas More

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“Plato by a goodly similitude declareth, why wise men refrain to meddle in the commonwealth. For when they see the people swarm into the streets, and daily wet to the skin with rain, and yet cannot persuade them to go out of the rain, they do keep themselves within their houses, seeing they cannot remedy the folly of the people.” ~~ Thomas More

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Quote of the Day – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. ” ~~Franklin Delano Roosevelt during a campaign speech… which, though given 88 years ago in the Garden on 31 October 1936, rings remarkably contemporary, a speech for “the restoration of American democracy” and its “preservation”.

For an interesting read on the parallels of Trump and Adolph Hitler check out The Guardian article: A week before the election, Trump will hold his most unsettling spectacle yet

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Quote of the Day – Yuval Noah Harari

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“In the past, censorship worked by blocking the flow of information. In the 21st century, censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information. People just don’t know what to pay attention to, and they often spend their time investigating and debating side issues.” ~~Yuval Noah Harari

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Quote of the Day – Karl Popper

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“All life is problem solving” ~~   Karl Popper

Scores of years ago I decided that I have never had an original thought in my life.  When I think I have one now days, a quick Google search dissuades me from the delusion.

All to say that years ago I also decided that life was nothing more than a series of problems to be solved.  Even if you want to do something fun, say a trip to Tahiti, there are a series of steps — problems — that need to be resolved.  Once I had this epiphany, for lack of a better word, I stopped being so upset by the many speed bumps or even craters that life throws our way.

Take my profound advice and $2 and change, and you will be able to buy yourself a soda pop.

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Quote of the Day – David Dunning

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge. ” ~~   David Dunning

Oops… sounds like the interior of my cranial chamber.

And yeah that is the Dunning of the Dunning-Kruger effect. As summarized in Wikipedia: “In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence instead of specific overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task.”

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Quote of the Day – Frank Zappa

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“Everyone has the right to be comfortable on his own terms” ~~   Frank Zappa

I understand what he was trying to get at, but  would we want a narcissistic fascist comfortable on his terms… or many other maladaptive personality types.

Generally, though, folks should be able to be who they are… as long as they do no harm to others.  AND this does not include just making someone uncomfortable.

Imagine how that would be.

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Quote of the Day – Frank Zappa: On Politics

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“I think politics is a valid concept, but what we have today is not really politics. It’s the equivalent of the high school election. It’s a popularity contest. It’s got nothing to do with politics – what it is, is mass merchandising.” ~~   Frank Zappa

“Pop is the new politics. There is more truth in pop music than in most political statements rendered by our leaders, even when you get down to the level of really simple pop records. What I’m saying is that is how bad politics is.” ~~   Frank Zappa

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Quote of the Day – Albert Camus

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” ~~   Albert Camus

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