“One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.”
Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
Quotes about day page 6
“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“What day is it?"
It's today," squeaked Piglet.
My favorite day," said Pooh.”
A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh
Variant: What day is it?", asked Winnie the Pooh
"It's today," squeaked Piglet
"My favorite day," said Pooh
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh
Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar
Variant: If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.
Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 8
“Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered.”
Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Washington's formal acceptance of command of the Army (16 June 1775), quoted in The Writings of George Washington : Life of Washington (1837) edited by Jared Sparks, p. 141
1770s
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)
Speech in Syracuse (12 September 1912) PWW 25:145
1910s
“Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.”
Dean Acheson (1893–1971) Statesman and lawyer
“It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Variant: It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
“An empty day, though clear and bright,
Is just as dark as any night.”
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.
1860s, 1864, Letter to the City of Atlanta (September 1864)
Source: Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman
Context: You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop
Context: You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling.
Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
“Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Source: The Anti-Christ
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama
Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most
Romain Rolland book Juan Criistobal
Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)
Source: Jean Christophe Vol I
Context: Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day.
Context: Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day. Love it, respect it, do not sully it, do not hinder it from coming to flower. Love it even when it is gray and sad like to-day. Do not be anxious. See. It is winter now. Everything is asleep. The good earth will awake again. You have only to be good and patient like the earth. Be reverent. Wait. If you are good, all will go well. If you are not, if you are weak, if you do not succeed, well, you must be happy in that. No doubt it is the best you can do. So, then, why will? Why be angry because of what you cannot do? We all have to do what we can.... Als ich kann.
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter
Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 26
“The finest day i ever had was when tomorrow never came”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer
Source: God-Shaped Hole
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2004, Democratic National Convention speech (July 2004)
Context: In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? I'm not talking about blind optimism here... No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope: In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead.
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest
"The Evolution of Chastity" (February 1934), as translated in Toward the Future (1975) edited by by René Hague, who also suggests "space" as an alternate translation of "the ether."
Variants:
"One day after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity" — after all the scientific and technological achievements — "we shall harness for God the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."
As quoted by R. Sargent Shriver, Jr. in his speech accepting the nomination as the Democratic candidate for vice president, in Washington, D. C. (8 August 1972); this has sometimes been published as if Shriver's interjection "after all the scientific and technological achievements" were part of the original statement, as in The New York Times (9 August 1972), p. 18
What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but identifying them.
As translated in The The Ignatian Tradition (2009) edited by Kevin F. Burke, Eileen Burke-Sullivan and Phyllis Zagano, p. 86
Love is the only force which can make things one without destroying them. … Some day, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
As quoted in Seed Sown : Theme and Reflections on the Sunday Lectionary Reading (1996) by Jay Cormier, p. 33
The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.
As quoted in Fire of Love : Encountering the Holy Spirit (2006) by Donald Goergen, p. 92
The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
As quoted in Read for the Cure (2007) by Eileen Fanning, p. v
Variant: Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
Context: What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but expressing them. And so we cannot avoid this conclusion: it is biologically evident that to gain control of passion and so make it serve spirit must be a condition of progress. Sooner or later, then, the world will brush aside our incredulity and take this step : because whatever is the more true comes out into the open, and whatever is better is ultimately realized. The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
Gena Showalter (1975) American writer
Source: Heart of the Dragon
“At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.”
Certe adveniente die judicii, non quæretur a nobis quid legimus, sed quid fecimus; nec quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus.
Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ
Book I, ch. 3; this is part of a longer passage:
A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences. Yet learning itself is not to be blamed, or is the simple knowledge of anything whatsoever to be despised, for true learning is good in itself and ordained by God; but a good conscience and a holy life are always to be preferred. But because many are more eager to acquire much learning than to live well, they often go astray, and bear little or no fruit. If only such people were as diligent in the uprooting of vices and the panting of virtues as they are in the debating of problems, there would not be so many evils and scandals among the people, nor such laxity in communities. At the Day of Judgement, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; not how eloquently we have spoken, but how holily we have lived. Tell me, where are now all those Masters and Doctors whom you knew so well in their lifetime in the full flower of their learning? Other men now sit in their seats, and they are hardly ever called to mind. In their lifetime they seemed of great account, but now no one speaks of them.
[Humili tui cognitio, certior viam est ad Deum, quam profunda scientiae inquisitio. Non est culpanda scientia, aut quelibet simplex rei notitia, quae bona est in se considerata, et a Deo ordinat: sed preferenda est semper bona conscientia, et virtuosa vita. Quia vero plures magis student scire, quam bene vivere: ideo saepe errant, et pene nullum, vel modicum fructum ferunt. O si tanta adhiberent diligentiam ad extirpanda vitia, et virtute inferendas, sicuti ad movenda questiones: non fierent tanta mala et scandala in populo nec tanta dissolutio in cenobiis ! Certe, adveniente die judicii, non quaeretur a nobis: quid legimus, sed quid fecimus: nec quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus. Dic mihi: Ubi sunt modo omnes illi Domini et Magistri, quos bene novisti, dum adhuc viverent et studiis florerent? Iam eorum praebendas alii possident: et nescio, utrum de eis recogitent. In vita sua aliquid esse videbantur, et modo de illis tacetur.]
Book I, ch. 3.
Source: The Imitation of Christ (c. 1418)
William Barclay (1907–1978) Church of Scotland minister and academic
Source: The Gospel of Matthew: Vol. 2, Chapters 11-28
“As merry as the day is long.”
Beatrice, Act II, scene i.
Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
Source: Hamlet
Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants
Source: Water for Elephants
“The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
Source: Veronika Decides to Die
“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis
“I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do - the day after.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“When there are many worlds
you can choose the one
you walk into each day.”
Jacqueline Woodson book Brown Girl Dreaming
Source: Brown Girl Dreaming
E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet
A Poet's Advice (1958)
Context: Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)
“When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.”
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist
