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Archives - November 2005

November 1, 2005

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it --- a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand --- as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.

– Marc Chagall

November 2, 2005

Man is a make-believe animal --- he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

– William Hazlitt

November 3, 2005

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.

– Elizabeth Drew

November 4, 2005

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

– Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia)

November 5, 2005

Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not.

– Norton Juster in THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH

November 6, 2005

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

– Joseph Addison

November 7, 2005

Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.

– Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

November 8, 2005

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

– Stephen King

November 9, 2005

I firmly believe that there was an ancient language, the language of the melodies that make us all be understood. The melody of ancient times must resound in our souls so that we may have a human life. The ancient melody, the so many times forgotten melody, the melody of love.

– Jozsef Szombatfalvi

November 10, 2005

Good questions outrank easy answers.

– Paul A. Samuelson

November 11, 2005

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

– Elmer Davis

November 12, 2005

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

November 13, 2005

I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.

– Milton Berle

November 14, 2005

Every exit is an entry somewhere.

– Tom Stoppard

November 15, 2005

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

– Confucius

November 16, 2005

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

– Frank Capra

November 17, 2005

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

– Marcus Aurelius

November 18, 2005

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

– Bertrand Russell

November 19, 2005

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

– Cicero

November 20, 2005

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

– Ann Landers

November 21, 2005

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.

– Ashleigh Brilliant

November 22, 2005

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

– Benjamin Disraeli

November 23, 2005

The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything.

– Richard Linklater, in Waking Life

November 24, 2005

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

– Meister Eckhart

November 25, 2005

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.

– Stephen Vincent Benét

November 26, 2005

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing.... The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

– Annie Dillard

November 27, 2005

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

– Kurt Vonnegut

November 28, 2005

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.

– William Lyon Phelps

November 29, 2005

To the right, books; to the left, a tea-cup. In front of me, the fireplace; behind me, the post. There is no greater happiness than this.

– Teiga

November 30, 2005

Wisdom is not in words; wisdom is meaning within words.

– Kahlil Gibran