Quotes about today
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“Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.
Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

The Unity of India : Collected Writings, 1937-1940 (1942), p. 280
Context: Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.
Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.

Evil, Past

“Today is the tomorrow you were promised yesterday.”

Shaun Tan book The Lost Thing

Source: The Lost Thing

“If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed

Happy, People, World, Happiness

“I met the oddest little fellow today, Alan of Trebond.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

“Today is the oldest you've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“Today I know this: when it comes time to take stock, the most painful wound is that of broken friendships; and there is nothing more foolish than to sacrifice a friendship to politics.”

Milan Kundera book Encounter

Source: Encounter

Pain, Friendship, Time

“So I want to thank the Pentagon, the Soviet Union and the military-industrial complex from the bottom of my heart. Without them, I could never have become the man I am today.”

George Carlin book Last Words

Source: Last Words

Heart

“Do not dwell upon the sins and mistakes of yesterday so exclusively as to have no energy and mind left for living rightly today, and do not think that the sins of yesterday can prevent you from living purely today.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

Source: Byways of Blessedness

Thinking

“It is very good that Wikipedia also gives a page to "Internet Meme". Internet memes are arguably the most important subset of memes today”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/276449081746915328 (5 December 2012) Twitter Source: The Selfish Gene

“Aha! Today I shall become an author! And I will auth and auth and auth and make a squillion dollars, whoopee!”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

“In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Thinking, Joy, Forgetting

“Today I feel that I shall win through. I have come to the gateway of the simple; I am now content to see things as they are. I have gained freedom myself; I shall allow freedom to others. In my work will be my salvation.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: The Home and the World

Feeling, Freedom

“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

“Today I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.”

Corrie ten Boom book The Hiding Place

Source: The Hiding Place

God, Memory, Past, Future

“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

“I think I need to avoid the world today. There’s no way I
can adult.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Firstlife

World, Way, Thinking

“Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.”

David Jeremiah

Source: The Prophecy Answer Book

War, People, Books, World

“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Universe

“Today will still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time

Knowledge, Universe

“If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what it is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is the lot of the average human being better now that in the time of the Pharaohs?”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Men, World, Time, Dependency

“What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow.
What are brief? today and tomorrow.
What are frail? spring blossoms and youth.
What are deep? the ocean and truth.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Truth, Youth, Spring, Sea

“The alchemist of the West has turned stone into glass
But my alchemy has transmuted glass into flint

Pharaohs of today have stalked me in vain”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

“Today is our most precious possession. It is our only sure possession.”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

“If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Source: The Quest for Peace, the Cause of Freedom

World, Peace, Freedom, Change

“Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

War, Way, Personality

“And what had he wanted? He'd never sat down to think about it. But mostly, he wanted yesterday to be different from today.”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

Source: Making Money

Thinking

“The difference between slaves in Roman and Ottoman days and today’s employees is that slaves did not need to flatter their boss.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 26

“I like today and perhaps a little future still, but the past is really something I'm not interested in. So, as far as I'm concerned, I like only the past of things and people I don't know. When I know, I don't care because I knew how it was.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

People, Past, Future

“If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

“I'm very brave generally,' he went on in a low voice: 'only today I happen to have a headache.' (Tweedledum)”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“Everything in the world is beautiful, but Man only recognizes beauty if he sees it either seldom or from afar. Listen, today we are gods! Our blue shadows are enormous! We move in a gigantic, joyful world!”

Vladimir Nabokov book The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

Source: The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

God, World, Beauty

“No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Back To Work, Life

“On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth, Mountain, Training

“Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

“… the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today's work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Way, Intelligence, Future

“Only someone who (like the Intuitionist) denies that the concepts and axioms of classical set theory have any meaning could be satisfied with such a solution, not someone who believes them to describe some well-determined reality. For in reality Cantor's conjecture must be either true or false, and its undecidability from the axioms as known today can only mean that these axioms do not contain a complete description of reality.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics

Reality, Falseness

“To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.”

Mary Baker Eddy book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

Source: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

“Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You're caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn't go running with Curt today because you don't want to sweat out this straightness. You're always battling to make your hair do what it wasn't meant to do.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah

Source: Americanah

“Only sick music makes money today.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Money, Music

“There's only us, there's only this / Forget regret, or life is yours to miss / No other road, no other way / No day but today!”

Jonathan Larson (1960–1996) American composer and playwright

Source: Rent (1996)

Life, Way, Forgetting

“When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Wisdom
Source: One Minute Wisdom (1989)

“May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Love, God, Peace, Faith

“Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"
That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"
No," Grover told me. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Dogs, Learning

“We few. We happy few.
We band of brothers, for he today
That sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: Henry V

Happiness

“If you don't want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Truth

“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Whatever is a reality today, whatever you touch and believe in and that seems real for you today, is going to be, like the reality of yesterday, an illusion tomorrow.”

Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) Italian dramatist, novelist, short story writer, and poet, Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

Reality

“I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)
Context: These military tribunals have, decidedly, a most singular idea of justice.
This is the plain truth, Mr. President, and it is terrifying. It will leave an indelible stain on your presidency. I realise that you have no power over this case, that you are limited by the Constitution and your entourage. You have, nonetheless, your duty as a man, which you will recognise and fulfill. As for myself, I have not despaired in the least, of the triumph of right. I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.

Truth, Justice, Light

“I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Success, Success, Heart

“Don't be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn't do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Quoted by Maya Angelou (quote reproduced in James L. Conyers, Andrew P. Smallwood, Malcolm X: A Historical Reader, Carolina Academic Press, 2008, p. 181 and Elaine Slivinski Lisandrelli, Maya Angelou: More than a poet, Enslow Publishers, 1996, p. 90)
Attributed

Thinking, Time, Personality

“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

283 http://books.google.com/books?id=_GLTsGHUxDgC&lpg=PA171&dq=Today%20as%20always%2C%20men%20fall%20into%20two%20groups&pg=PA171#v=onepage&q&f=false Human, All Too Human (1878)

Men

“The identity of the Filipino today is of a person asking what is his identity.”

Nick Joaquín (1917–2004) Filipino writer

Source: Culture and History

Personality

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Hope, Hope

“We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

“If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

Source: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future...: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned

“Today in my heart
a vague trembling of stars
and all roses are
as white as my pain.”

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director

Pain, Star, Heart

“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

God, World

“An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice… or terrify, all depending upon how we conduct ourselves today.”

Jim Davis (1945) American cartoonist and creator of Garfield

Imagination, Memory, Past, Future

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: VII, 8 (Penguin Classics edition of Meditations, translated by Maxwell Staniforth)

Future

“I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. When I ascend I often jump over steps, and no step forgives me that.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Forgiveness, Change

“Every day in the United States, seventeen children are killed by gunfire. That’s about 6,000 children each year who are killed by guns, as compared, for example, with about 3,000 a year who died at the height of the polio epidemic of the 1950s. We rose up as a society to fight against polio. Why do we not act more forcefully to halt today’s even greater scourge?”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith

Children, Fight

“The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present.”

Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911) American historian

History, Time, Waiting

“Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians.”

Steven Pinker book The Blank Slate

Source: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Food

“Come let me kiss you. Life was never so precious as today— when it meant so little.”

Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970) German novelist

Source: Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country

Life, Kiss

“The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)
Context: The press to-day is an army with carefully organized arms and branches, with journalists as officers, and readers as soldiers. But here, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and war-aims and operation-plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows, nor is allowed to know, the purposes for which he is used, nor even the role that he is to play. A more appalling caricature of freedom of thought cannot be imagined. Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty.

“I would tell you that you looked really hot today when I saw you naked, but that probably wouldn't be appropriate, being as we're in bed together but not doing anything."
Stark - Hunted”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

“The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived - not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Let Me be a Woman

Life, God, Faith, Time

“To feel today what one felt yesterday isn't to feel - it's to remember today what was felt yesterday, to be today's living corpse of what yesterday was lived and lost.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Feeling

“We have reached a point today where labor-saving devices are good only when they do not throw the worker out of his job.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“Don't forget to pray today because God did not forget to wake you up this morning.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Source: My Utmost for His Highest Journal

God, Forgetting

“Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

War, Success, Past

“I realize that violence is not more prevalent today than in previous periods of human history, but there is a difference. We have seen visionary standards adopted by the global community that espouse peace and human rights, and the globalization of information ensures that the violation of these principles of nonviolence by a powerful and admired democracy tends to resonate throughout the world community. We should have advanced much further in the realization of women's rights, given these international commitments to peace and the rule of law.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Women, World, Peace, Law

“I have had long association with Thengadiji. I was present in the Bhopal meeting in which the decision to form the BMS was taken. During the discussion to decide the name of the new organisation, Thengadiji had suggested the name Shramjivi Sangathan. The name Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh was coined keeping in view the fact that the name should be simple and meaningful. I feel trade unionism is facing a crisis today. We have before us two paths, one of these is on the way out. There is a need to find out the third one. Workers' interests should be protected but at the same time the nation's interest too must be borne in mind. The workers' movement is in a crisis and how to balance things in a changing scenario should be considered using the third way out, which was what Thengadi had been attempting. Whatever Thengadiji has written should be read by all of us. I feel it will guide us for long.”

Dattopant Thengadi (1920–2004) Indian politician

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, The Organiser, 31 October 2004 issue. p. 13, Article Named- 'His writings will guide us' https://web.archive.org/web/20120331123458/http://organiser.org/archives/historic/dynamic/modulesa3a9.html?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=48&page=13

Way, Feeling, Decision, Change

“The time is past when music was written for a handful of aesthetes. Today vast crowds of people have come face to face with serious music and are waiting with eager impatience. Composers, take heed of this…But this does not mean that you must pander to this audience. Pandering always has an element of insincerity about it and nothing good ever came of that.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer

Page 106; from a notebook entry (1937).
Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

People, Music, Time, Waiting

“To those who oppose the steps I’m announcing today, let me say that I respect your passion and share your commitment to liberty and democracy. The question is how we uphold that commitment. I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result. Moreover, it does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. Even if that worked — and it hasn’t for 50 years — we know from hard-earned experience that countries are more likely to enjoy lasting transformation if their people are not subjected to chaos. We are calling on Cuba to unleash the potential of 11 million Cubans by ending unnecessary restrictions on their political, social, and economic activities. In that spirit, we should not allow U. S. sanctions to add to the burden of Cuban citizens that we seek to help.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Statement on Cuban policy (December 2014)

People, Democracy, Question, Passion

“[…] despite how hard sometimes the world seems to be, and all you see on television is war and conflict and poverty and violence, the truth is that if you had to choose when to be born, not knowing where or who you would be, in all of human history, now would be the time. Because the world is less violent, it is healthier, it is wealthier, it is more tolerant and it offers more opportunity than any time in human history for more people than any time in human history. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still terrible things happening around the world or in this region. We still have things like human trafficking. And we still have terrible abuse of children. And there are conflicts. And so these are things that we’re going to have to tackle and deal with. But you should know that with each successive generation things have improved just a little bit. And over time, that little bit adds to a lot. And it’s now up to you, the next generation, to make sure that 20 years from now, or 30 years from now, people look back and say, wow, things are a lot better now than they were back then. And there will still be problems 20 or 30 years from now also. But they will be different problems, because you will have solved many of the problems that exist today.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

War, Children, People, Truth

“John is very sweet. He always mentions me in all his interviews; saying that he’s really fond of me. He says that he thinks of me as one of his favourite actors- its very nice. I’ve seen John’s growth from his first film to Baabul and beyond. I think he’s grown as an actor and of course he has become one of the most sought after stars today. I see girl fans who’re crazy about him. I feel good about that and I always believe that good people get good things in life - John is one of them Rani quotes.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

http://ranimukherji.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=interviews&action=display&thread=407.
Rani On Celebrities

Life, People, Feeling, Quotes

“If, there is a tendency in all Western democracies no longer to respect the professional politician or even the party member as such, it is no longer only because of some personal insufficiency, some fault, or some incompetence, or because of some scandal that can now be more widely known, amplified, and in fact often produced, if not premeditated by the power of the media. Rather, it is because politicians become more and more, or even solely characters in the media's representation at the very moment when the transformation of the public space, precisely by the media, causes them to lose the essential part of the power and even of the competence they were granted before by the structures of parliamentary representation, by the party apparatuses that were linked to it, and so forth. However competent they may personally be, professional politicians who conform to the old model tend today to become structurally incompetent. The same media power accuses, produces, and amplifies at the same time this incompetence of traditional politicians: on the one hand, it takes aways from them the legitimate power they held in the former political space (party, parliament, and so forth), but, on the other hand, it obliges them to become mere silhouettes, if not marionettes, on the stage of televisual rhetoric. They were thought to be actors of politics, they now often risk, as everyone knows, being no more than TV actors.”

Jacques Derrida book Specters of Marx

Wear and Tears (tableu of a ageless world)
Specters of Marx (1993)

Democracy, Time, Parting, Personality

“"Nothing important happened today." - King George's diary entry, July 4th, 1776, the same day the American colonies declared their independence.”

George III of the United Kingdom (1738–1820) King of Great Britain and King of Ireland

Arnold Hunt, curator at the British Library, says King George never kept a diary http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11703583. Misattributed

“In the face of violence that seems intractable and suffering that is so senseless, it is easy to grow cynical, and I think tempting to give in to the notion that peace and security may be beyond our grasp. But I say to all of you here today, especially the young people, do not give into that cynicism. Do not lose the idealism and optimism that is the root of all great change. Don’t ever lose the faith that says, if we want it, if we are willing to work for it, if we stand together, the future can be different; tomorrow can be better.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People, Peace, Faith, Optimism

“Since I learned the truth in Mecca, my dearest friends have come to include all kinds — some Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and even atheists! I have friends who are called capitalists, Socialists, and Communists! Some of my friends are moderates, conservatives, extremists — some are even Uncle Toms! My friends today are black, brown, red, yellow, and white!”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), p. 375

Truth, Learning

“The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind—yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy. … The whole basis of religion is a symbolic emotionalism which modern knowledge has rendered meaningless & even unhealthy. Today we know that the cosmos is simply a flux of purposeless rearrangement amidst which man is a wholly negligible incident or accident. There is no reason why it should be otherwise, or why we should wish it otherwise. All the florid romancing about man's "dignity", "immortality", &c. &c. is simply egotistical delusions plus primitive ignorance. So, too, are the infantile concepts of "sin" or cosmic "right" & "wrong". Actually, organic life on our planet is simply a momentary spark of no importance or meaning whatsoever. Man matters to nobody except himself. Nor are his "noble" imaginative concepts any proof of the objective reality of the things they visualise. Psychologists understand how these concepts are built up out of fragments of experience, instinct, & misapprehension. Man is essentially a machine of a very complex sort, as La Mettrie recognised nearly 2 centuries ago. He arises through certain typical chemical & physical reactions, & his members gradually break down into their constituent parts & vanish from existence. The idea of personal "immortality" is merely the dream of a child or savage. However, there is nothing anti-ethical or anti-social in such a realistic view of things. Although meaning nothing in the cosmos as a whole, mankind obviously means a good deal to itself. Therefore it must be regulated by customs which shall ensure, for its own benefit, the full development of its various accidental potentialities. It has a fortuitous jumble of reactions, some of which it instinctively seeks to heighten & prolong, & some of which it instinctively seeks to shorten or lessen. Also, we see that certain courses of action tend to increase its radius of comprehension & degree of specialised organisation (things usually promoting the wished-for reactions, & in general removing the species from a clod-like, unorganised state), while other courses of action tend to exert an opposite effect. Now since man means nothing to the cosmos, it is plan that his only logical goal (a goal whose sole reference is to himself) is simply the achievement of a reasonable equilibrium which shall enhance his likelihood of experiencing the sort of reactions he wishes, & which shall help along his natural impulse to increase his differentiation from unorganised force & matter. This goal can be reached only through teaching individual men how best to keep out of each other's way, & how best to reconcile the various conflicting instincts which a haphazard cosmic drift has placed within the breast of the same person. Here, then, is a practical & imperative system of ethics, resting on the firmest possible foundation & being essentially that taught by Epicurus & Lucretius. It has no need of supernatualism, & indeed has nothing to do with it.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Natalie H. Wooley (2 May 1936), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 240-241
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life, Men, Children, Truth

“p>Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that, one magical day, good luck will suddenly rain down on them - will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn't rain down, yesterday, today, tomorrow or ever. Good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day on their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no-ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.”

Eduardo Galeano book The Book of Embraces

The Nobodies; Cied in Mother Jones Magazine (1991) The Book of Embraces. March-April 1991. p. 71
The Book of Embraces (1991)

Life, Children, World, Religion

“If Botticelli were alive today he'd be working for Vogue.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

As quoted in The Observer (21 October 1968); a punctuation variant occurs in some publications: "If Botticelli were alive today, he'd be working for Vogue."

“Because of the work of generations, because we’ve stood together in a great alliance, because people across this continent have forged a European Union dedicated to cooperation and peace, we have made historic progress toward the vision we share -- a Europe that is whole and free and at peace. And yet, as we gather here today, we know that this vision is threatened by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It is a brazen assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine -- a sovereign and independent European nation. It challenges that most basic of principles of our international system -- that borders cannot be redrawn at the barrel of a gun; that nations have the right to determine their own future.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

It undermines an international order where the rights of peoples and nations are upheld and can’t simply be taken away by brute force.
2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People, Peace, Future

“Why does almost everything seem to me like its own parody? Why must I think that almost all, no, all the methods and conventions of art today are good for parody only?”

Thomas Mann book Doctor Faustus

Source: Doctor Faustus (1947), Ch. 15

Art, Thinking

“Ibn 'Umar said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say, "On the Day of Rising, a believer will be brought near his Lord until His mercy descends on him and He will ask him to acknowledge his sins and say, 'Do you confess to such-and-such a sin? Do you confess to such-and-such a sin?' He will say, 'Lord, I confess.' He will say, 'I veiled it for you in the world and I forgive you for it today,' and he will be given the page of his good actions."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 433
Sunni Hadith

World, Peace, Forgiveness

“What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.”

Tacitus book Annals

Book XI, 24
Annals (117)

Support

“I know what I'm about to say now is controversial, but I have to say it. This nation cannot continue turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the taking of some 4,000 unborn children's lives every day. That's one every 21 seconds. One every 21 seconds. We cannot pretend that America is preserving her first and highest ideal, the belief that each life is sacred, when we've permitted the deaths of 15 million helpless innocents since the Roe versus Wade decision. 15 million children who will never laugh, never sing, never know the joy of human love, will never strive to heal the sick, feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights. We are all infinitely poorer for their loss. There's another grim truth we should face up to: Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing. This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well, today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with? I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God."”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

I will continue to support every effort to restore that protection including the Hyde-Jepsen respect life bill. I've asked for your all-out commitment, for the mighty power of your prayers, so that together we can convince our fellow countrymen that America should, can, and will preserve God's greatest gift. Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (30 January 1984) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40394 · YouTube - Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Elph9CfsKs 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Love, Life, Death, God

“No one is so old that he cannot live yet another year, nor so young that he cannot die today.”

Fernando de Rojas La Celestina

Act IV.
La Celestina (1499)

“That which Heraclitus avoided, however, is still the same at that which we shun today: the noise and democratic chatter of the Ephesians, their politics, their latest news of the “Empire,” … their market business of “today”—for we philosophers need to be spared one thing above all: everything to do with “today.” We reverence what is still, cold, noble, distant, past, and in general everything in the face of which the soul does not have to defend itself and wrap itself up.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 3, Aphorism 8, W. Kaufmann, trans., in Basic Writings of Nietzsche (1992), p. 546
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Soul, Business, Distant, Past

“Neo-Plasticism has its roots in Cubism. It could just as easy be called the Painting of Real Abstraction. Since the abstract can be expressed by a plastic reality... It achieves what all painting has tried to achieve but has been able to express only in a veiled manner. By their position and their dimension as well as by the importance of given to colour, the coloured planes express in a plastic way only relations and not forms. Neo-Plasticism imparts to these relations an aesthetic balance and thereby expresses universal harmony... For the moment what art had discovered must still be limited to art itself. Our environment cannot yet be realized as a creation of pure harmony. Art today is at the very point formerly occupied by religion. In its deepest meaning art was the transposition of the natural [into another plane]; in practice it always sought to achieve harmony between man and untransposed nature. Generally speaking, so do Theosophy and Anthroposophy, although these already possessed the original symbol of balance. And this is why they never were able to achieve equivalent relations, that is to say true harmony.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in Mondrian's letter to Rudolf Steiner, c. 1921-23; as cited in Abstract Painting, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co 1964, p. 83-85
1920's

Religion, Art, Way, Nature

“I feel keeping a promise to yourself is a direct reflection of the love you have for yourself. I used to make promises to myself and find them easy to break. Today, I love myself enough to not only make a promise to myself, but I love myself enough to keep that promise”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 46

Love, Feeling

“[having been recognized by a woman in a diner]
She sits down across the table from me, and didn't say "Hi, hello, my name is…." She just said "this is what I'm going to tell my husband when he gets home from work today. I'm going to tell him that I had lunch with Jeff Foxworthy."”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

[looks up] Really God? Really?
Aged and Confused (2009)

God, Home

“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities — I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not — that one endures.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Will to Power

Sec 910 (Autumn 1887, KSA 12.513)
The Will to Power (1888)

Suffering

“Now, today is the day we honor, of course, the Presidents, ranging from George Washington, who couldn't tell a lie, to George Bush, who couldn't tell the truth, to Bill Clinton, who couldn't tell the difference.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Monologue, 19 February 2007 (U.S. Presidents Day)
The Tonight Show

Truth, Lie

“The concept of positivity in itself, in abstracto, has become part and parcel of the ideology today. … Critique has started to become suspect, regardless of its content.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: Lectures on Negative Dialectics (1965-66), p. 23

Parting

“Today, the Princess Royal has been canonized as a secular saint, for her truly admirable international work on behalf of the Save the Children Fund. Her dedication and concern are beyond doubt, but she didn't catch them like measles.”

Anne, Princess Royal (1950) daughter of Elizabeth II

Bernard Levin, "Uneasy Lies the Head", The Times, 23 January 1989.
About

Children, Princess

“To say it once again: today I find it an impossible book — badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused, sentimental, in some places saccharine-sweet to the point of effeminacy, uneven in pace, lacking in any desire for logical purity, so sure of its convictions that it is above any need for proof, and even suspicious of the propriety of proof, a book for initiates, 'music' for those who have been baptized in the name of music and who are related from the first by their common and rare experiences of art, a shibboleth for first cousins in artibus [in the arts] an arrogant and fanatical book that wished from the start to exclude the profanum vulgus [the profane mass] of the 'educated' even more than the 'people'; but a book which, as its impact has shown and continues to show, has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new secret paths and dancing-places.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Nochmals gesagt, heute ist es mir ein unmögliches Buch, - ich heisse es schlecht geschrieben, schwerfällig, peinlich, bilderwüthig und bilderwirrig, gefühlsam, hier und da verzuckert bis zum Femininischen, ungleich im Tempo, ohne Willen zur logischen Sauberkeit, sehr überzeugt und deshalb des Beweisens sich überhebend, misstrauisch selbst gegen die Schicklichkeit des Beweisens, als Buch für Eingeweihte, als "Musik" für Solche, die auf Musik getauft, die auf gemeinsame und seltene Kunst-Erfahrungen hin von Anfang der Dinge an verbunden sind, als Erkennungszeichen für Blutsverwandte in artibus, - ein hochmüthiges und schwärmerisches Buch, das sich gegen das profanum vulgus der "Gebildeten" von vornherein noch mehr als gegen das "Volk" abschliesst, welches aber, wie seine Wirkung bewies und beweist, sich gut genug auch darauf verstehen muss, sich seine Mitschwärmer zu suchen und sie auf neue Schleichwege und Tanzplätze zu locken.
"Attempt at a Self-Criticism", p. 5
The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

People, Secret, Books, Education

“Some Saian mountaineer
Struts today with my shield.
I threw it down by a bush and ran
When the fighting got hot.
Life seemed somehow more precious.
It was a beautiful shield.
I know where I can buy another
Exactly like it, just as round.”

Archilochus (-680–-645 BC) Ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragments
Variant: A Saian boasts about the shield which beside a bush
though good armour I unwillingly left behind.
I saved myself, so what do I care about the shield?
To hell with it! I'll get one soon just as good.
Variant: I don't give a damn if some Thracian ape strut
Proud of that first-rate shield the bushes got.
Leaving it was hell, but in a tricky spot
I kept my hide intact. Good shields can be bought. (as translated by Stuart Silverman)
Variant: Let who will boast their courage in the field,
I find but little safety from my shield.
Nature's, not honour's, law we must obey:
This made me cast my useless shield away,
And by a prudent flight and cunning save
A life, which valour could not, from the grave.
A better buckler I can soon regain;
But who can get another life again?

Life, Beauty, Mountain, Fight

Quotes about today page 3

Quotes about today
page 3