November 5

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004

America has spoken, and I'm humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens. ~ George W. Bush

• selected by Kalki

2005

I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. ~ Will Durant (born 5 November 1885)

• proposed by Kalki

2006

Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty. ~ Will Durant

• proposed by Kalki

2007

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
~ Traditional rhyme for Guy Fawkes Night. ~

• proposed by Kalki

2008

I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:
(i) this is worthless nonsense;
(ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
(iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
(iv) I always said so.
~ J. B. S. Haldane (born 5 November 1892)

• proposed by InvisibleSun

2009

Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ~ Eugene V. Debs (born 5 November 1855)

• proposed by InvisibleSun

2010

I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets. ~ Eugene V. Debs

• proposed by InvisibleSun

2011

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded.
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~

• proposed by Zarbon

2012

The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionaries are philosophers and saints.

~ Will Durant ~

• proposed by Kalki

2013

I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim, that "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."

~ Susan B. Anthony ~

• proposed by Kalki

2014

T'his darkness will not last forever. There will some day come a Fifth of November — or another date, it doesn't matter — when fires will burn in a chain of brightness from Land's End to John O' Groats. The children will dance and leap about them as they did in the times before. They will take each other by the hand and watch the rockets breaking, and afterwards they will go home singing to the houses full of light…

~ P. L. Travers ~

• proposed by Kalki

2015

I, like God, do not play with dice, and do not believe in coincidence.

~ V for Vendetta ~

• proposed by Kalki, for the date of V's anarchistic direct action against a fascist state, in the film, and in the source writings.

2016

Love one another. My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. If you take an attitude of love toward everybody you meet, you'll eventually get along.

~ Will Durant ~

• proposed by Kalki

2017

If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes death with taxes, and yearns for that government which governs least. If he asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous. In the simplest societies there is hardly any government.

~ Will Durant ~

• proposed by Kalki

2018

It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it.

~ Will Durant ~

• proposed by Zarbon

2019

Americans who know nothing else about firearms are all too familiar with the name AR-15. It’s the semi-automatic weapon that murderers have used in many of the most notorious and highest-casualty gun killings of recent years: Aurora, Colorado. Newtown, Connecticut. Orlando, Florida. San Bernardino, California. Now, with modified versions, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Sutherland Springs, Texas … A little bullet pays off so much in wound ballistics. That is what people who choose these weapons know.

~ James Fallows ~

• proposed by JessRek6, in regard to the anniversary of the Sutherland Springs church shooting.

2020

Rooted in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.

~ Will Durant ~

• proposed by Kalki

2021

Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,— That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour Serves but to brighten all our future days.

~ John Brown ~

• proposed by Zarbon

2022

This is only the land of take-what-you-want. Anarchy means "without leaders", not "without order". With anarchy comes an age of Ordnung, of true order, which is to say voluntary order... this age of Ordnung will begin when the mad and incoherent cycle of verwirrung that these bulletins reveal has run its course … This is not anarchy, Eve. This is chaos.

~ Alan Moore ~ in ~ V for Vendetta ~

• proposed by Kalki

2023

Science tells us how to heal and how to kill; it reduces the death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war; but only wisdom — desire coordinated in the light of all experience — can tell us when to heal and when to kill. To observe processes and to construct means is science; to criticize and coordinate ends is philosophy: and because in these days our means and instruments have multiplied beyond our interpretation and synthesis of ideals and ends, our life is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. For a fact is nothing except in relation to desire; it is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

~ Will Durant ~

• proposed by Kalki

2024

I find a rapture linked with each despair, Well worth the price of anguish. I detect More good than evil in humanity. Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, And men grow better as the world grows old.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~

• proposed by Kalki

2025

Rank or add further suggestions…

---

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

• Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
  Weep, and you weep alone.
  For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,
  But has trouble enough of its own.
  ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~
  • used on 14 July 2004, selected by Kalki

• There is no sudden entrance into Heaven. Slow is the ascent by the path of Love. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox
  • used on 1 September 2004, selected by Kalki

---

---

---

The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do. ~ Susan B. Anthony, voted (against the law) that day

• 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 14:04, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• 3 InvisibleSun 18:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• 1 Zarbon 05:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
• 3 Saritor 15:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
• 4 Hydrangeans (talk) 22:01, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

---

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.~ Will Durant (date of birth)

• 3 Kalki 23:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
• 3 InvisibleSun 18:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• 0 because it is unsourced. - InvisibleSun 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
• 3 because nature and wisdom are truly at conflicting odds. Zarbon 05:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

---

And here let me emphasize the fact — and it cannot be repeated too often — that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. ~ Eugene V. Debs (born November 5, 1855)

• 3 InvisibleSun 18:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• 2 Zarbon 05:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

---

If ever I become entirely respectable I shall be quite sure that I have outlived myself. ~ Eugene V. Debs

• 3 InvisibleSun 18:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• 2 Zarbon 05:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
• 3 Hydrangeans (talk) 22:01, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

---

I shall not waste any time on such miserable twaddle as to say that I ought to have been elected. … It is the undoubted right of the people to change their servants, and to remove one and displace him with another at any time they choose, for a good reason, for a bad reason, or for no reason at all. If we are to remain a free people, it is the duty of public servants not grumpily and sourly to accept the verdict of the majority, but joyously to accept that verdict. ~ Henry Fountain Ashurst (2008 U.S. Presidenial election on November 4 with polls in most states closing after 24:00 UTC meaning results will come on November 5)

• 3 --Allen3 ^talk 23:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
• 3 InvisibleSun 19:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
• 0 Zarbon 05:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

---

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos. ~ Will Durant

• 2 Zarbon 03:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
• 0 because it is unsourced. InvisibleSun 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
• 0 as it is unsourced and is not at the page. Hydrangeans (talk) 22:01, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

---

History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up. ~ Will Durant

• 2 Zarbon 03:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
• 0 because it is unsourced. InvisibleSun 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
• 0 The quote is not included at the page. Hydrangeans (talk) 22:01, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

---

Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success. ~ Bryan Adams

• 3 Zarbon 03:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

* 3 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC) This is actually an author named Brian Adams from How to Succeed (1985)

• 0 because it is unsourced. - InvisibleSun 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

---

When the great markets by the sea shut fast
All that calm Sunday that goes on and on:
When even lovers find their peace at last,
And Earth is but a star, that once had shone. ~ James Elroy Flecker

• 2 Zarbon 03:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

---

So many gods, so many creeds;
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

• 2 Zarbon 04:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• 3 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
• 3 InvisibleSun 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

---

To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

• 3 Zarbon 04:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• 2 Kalki 05:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
• 2 InvisibleSun 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

---

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~

• 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 09:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC) with a very strong lean toward 4.
• 3 Hydrangeans (talk) 22:01, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

---