Ruminations
OF THE DAY
July 22, 2024
QUOTE
There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.
BIRTHDAYS
1925 – Joseph Sargent, Actor, director, and producer
1934 – Louise Fletcher, Actress
1947 – Albert Brooks, Actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter
1947 – Don Henley, Singer-songwriter and drummer
1955 – Willem Dafoe, Actor
1964 – David Spade, Actor, producer, and screenwriter
IN MEMORY
1832 – Napoleon II, French emperor
1934 – John Dillinger, Gangster
1967 – Carl Sandburg, Poet and historian
2008 – Estelle Getty, Actress
ON THIS DAY
1598 – William Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, is entered on the Stationers’ Register. By decree of Queen Elizabeth, the Stationers’ Register licensed printed works, giving the Crown tight control over all published material.
1793 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first recorded human to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America.
1893 – Katharine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful” after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1894 – The first ever motor race is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen.
1937 – The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
OF THE DAY ARCHIVE
November 19, 2023
QUOTE
Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.
November 18, 2023
QUOTE
Killing is an excellent way of dealing with a hostility problem.
November 17, 2023
QUOTE
As I looked out into the night sky, across all those infinite stars, it made me realize how insignificant they are.
November 16, 2022
QUOTE
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.
The essential notion of a capitalist society … is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.
If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don’t be surprised if you get unemployment.
When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it. When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on. When a man spends someone else’s money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn’t care at all how much he spends. And when a man spends someone else’s money on someone else, he does’t care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that’s government for you.
November 14, 2023
QUOTE
The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.
I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
Great men cultivate love…only little men cherish a spirit of hatred
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
Character is power.
You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.
There is a certain class of race problem-solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.
November 12, 2023
QUOTE
If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded.
November 11, 2023
QUOTE
Well, the most terrible fear that anybody should have is not war, is not a disease, not cancer or heart problems or food poisoning – it’s a man or a woman without a sense of humor.
