April 1

  • Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth.

    William Harvey (born 1 April 1578) English physician
  • What is unique about the "I" hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual "I" is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.

    Milan Kundera (born 1 April 1929) Franco-Czech novelist
  • To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.

    Edmond Rostand (born 1 April 1868) French poet and dramatist

April 2

  • Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it.

    Émile Zola (born 2 April 1840) French writer and social activist
  • Forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom.

    Giacomo Casanova (born 2 April 1725) Italian adventurer and author
  • My spirit to yours dear brother,
    Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,
    I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
    I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also,
    That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession,
    We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
    We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,
    Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
    We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
    We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,
    They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
    Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,
    Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.

    Walt Whitman in "To Him Who Was Crucified" in Leaves of GrassAmerican journalist and poet

April 3

  • If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough.

    Edward Everett Hale (born 3 April 1822) American author and Unitarian clergyman
  • Stretch or contract me, Thy poor debtor;
    This is but tuning of my breast,
    To make the music better. Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust,
    Thy hands made both, and I am there;
    Thy power and love, my love and trust
    Make one place ev'rywhere.

    George Herbert (born 3 April 1593) English poet and orator
  • I am only one,
    But still I am one.
    I cannot do everything,
    But still I can do something;
    And because I cannot do everything
    I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

    Edward Everett Hale (born 3 April 1822) American author and Unitarian clergyman

April 4

  • The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realise that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.

    Black ElkA famous Medicine Man
  • All we are saying is give peace a chance.

    John LennonEnglish musician and singer-songwriter

April 5

  • God's own hand
    Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him
    The end of all our ends is, but with us
    Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works
    Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this
    At least is ours, to make them righteous.

    Algernon Charles Swinburne (born 5 April 1837) English poet
  • I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

    Booker T. Washington (born 5 April 1856) American political leader, educator and author
  • Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.

    Colin Powell (born 5 April 1937) United States statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army

April 6

  • Little deeds of kindness,
    Little words of love,
    Make our pleasant earth below
    Like the heaven above.

    Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney (born 6 April 1823) American Universalist educator and poet
  • I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been led astray by it.

    Gustave Moreau (born 6 April 1826) French Symbolist painter
  • Little drops of water,
    Little grains of sand,
    Make the mighty ocean
    And the pleasant land. Thus the little minutes,
    Humble though they be,
    Make the mighty ages
    Of eternity.

    Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney (born 6 April 1823) American Universalist educator and poet

April 7

  • Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.

    William Ellery Channing (born 7 April 1780) Unitarian preacher in the United States
  • I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself.

    Charlton HestonAmerican film actor
  • There are seasons, in human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when…to dare, is the highest wisdom.

    William Ellery Channing (born 7 April 1780) Unitarian preacher in the United States

April 8

  • Somewhere over the rainbow
    Skies are blue
    And the dreams that you dare to dream
    Really do come true.

    Yip Harburg (born 8 April 1896) American lyricist, most famous for "The Wizard of Oz"
  • Look, look, look to the rainbow
    Follow it over the hill and stream
    Look, look, look to the rainbow
    Follow the fellow who follows a dream.

    Yip Harburg (born 8 April 1896) American lyricist, most famous for "The Wizard of Oz"
  • You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.

    Kofi Annan (born 8 April 1938) Ghanaian diplomat and the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations

April 9

  • These tall and handsome ships, swaying imperceptibly on tranquil waters, these sturdy ships, with their inactive, nostalgic appearance, don’t they say to us in a speechless tongue: When do we cast off for happiness?

    Charles Baudelaire (born 9 April 1821) French poet, critic and translator
  • Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity.

    Charles Baudelaire (born 9 April 1821) French poet, critic and translator
  • All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good: they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed,
    DO WHAT THOU WILT.
    Because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour.

    François Rabelais (died 9 April 1553) French humanist writer of satirical romances

April 10

  • It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.

    William Hazlitt (born 10 April 1778) English writer
  • They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,
    If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,
    It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides:
    Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.

    George William Russell (born 10 April 1867) Irish nationalist, critic, poet, and painter
  • It was the wise all-seeing soul
    Who counselled neither war nor peace:
    "Only be thou thyself that goal
    In which the wars of time shall cease."

    George William Russell (born 10 April 1867) Irish nationalist, critic, poet, and painter

April 11

  • No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. … Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses. .. The peril of this Nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope!

    Charles Evans Hughes (born 11 April 1862) Amercian Republican politician and jurist
  • When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.

    Charles Evans Hughes (born 11 April 1862) Amercian Republican politician and jurist
  • The only real progress to abiding peace is found in the friendly disposition of peoples and … facilities for maintaining peace are useful only to the extent that this friendly disposition exists and finds expression. War is not only possible, but probable, where mistrust and hatred and desire for revenge are the dominant motives. Our first duty is at home with our own opinion, by education and unceasing effort to bring to naught the mischievous exhortation of chauvinists; our next is to aid in every practicable way in promoting a better feeling among peoples, the healing of wounds, and the just settlement of differences.

    Charles Evans Hughes (born 11 April 1862) Amercian Republican politician and jurist

April 12

  • He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

    Yeshua (Jesus Christ)Central figure of Christianity
  • The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.

    Henry Clay (born 12 April 1777) American statesman and orator
  • No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it.
    Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there's somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, "Oh, you can't do that…"

    Tom Clancy (born 12 April 1947) American author

April 13

  • I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

    Thomas Jefferson (born 13 April 1743) The third president of the United States from 1801–1809
  • If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

    Thomas Jefferson (born 13 April 1743) The third president of the United States from 1801–1809
  • History says don't hope
    On this side of the grave.
    But then, once in a lifetime
    The longed for tidal wave
    Of justice can rise up
    And hope and history rhyme.
    So hope for a great sea-change
    on the far side of revenge.
    Believe that a further shore
    is reachable from here.
    Believe in miracles
    and cures and healing wells.

    Seamus Heaney (born 13 April 1939) Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet

April 14

  • Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
    One thing unshaken stays:
    Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
    Whereby decays
    Each thing save one thing: — mid this strife diurnal
    Of hourly change begot,
    Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
    And changes not.

    James Branch Cabell (born 14 April 1879) American author of satirical fantasy works
  • What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. … But you, I think, have always comprehended this.

    James Branch Cabell (born 14 April 1879) American author of satirical fantasy works
  • I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug; as well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always consider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not distrustful — being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational.

    James Branch Cabell (born 14 April 1879) American author of satirical fantasy works

April 15

  • Gentlemen, that is surely true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know what it means. But we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be the truth.

    Benjamin Peirce on Euler's identityAmerican mathematician who taught at Harvard University for forty years
  • Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative — much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius — it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations.

    Henry James (born 15 April 1843) American-born author and literary critic
  • Any one who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory. Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition.

    Leonardo da Vinci (born 15 April 1452) Italian Renaissance architect, musician and painter

April 16

  • What one man can do himself directly is but little. If however he can stir up ten others to take up the task he has accomplished much.

    Wilbur Wright (born 16 April 1867) American inventor, designer of the first practical airplane
  • All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

    Anatole France (born 16 April 1844) French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
  • It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.

    Peter Ustinov (born 16 April 1921) English-German actor, writer, and dramatist

April 17

  • The real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will.

    Karen Blixen (born 17 April 1885) Danish author
  • I am not a novelist, really not even a writer; I am a storyteller. One of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life seems to be its melody, its pattern. And I feel in life such an infinite, truly inconceivable fantasy.

    Karen Blixen (born 17 April 1885) Danish author
  • The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority.

    Benjamin Tucker (born 17 April 1854) American journalist and socialist

April 18

  • I believe that music can be an inspirational force in all our lives — that its eloquence and the depth of its meaning are all-important, and that all personal considerations concerning musicians and the public are relatively unimportant — that music come from the heart and returns to the heart — that music is spontaneous, impulsive expression — that its range is without limit — that music is forever growing — that music can be one element to help us build a new conception of life in which the madness and cruelty of wars will be replaced by a simple understanding of the brotherhood of man.

    Leopold Stokowski (born 18 April 1882) Founder of the New York City Symphony Orchestra
  • You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

    Clarence Darrow (born 18 April 1857) American lawyer
  • Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.

    George Henry Lewes (born 18 April 1817) English philosopher, biographer, novelist, and critic

April 19

  • Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

    Yeshua (Jesus Christ)Central figure of Christianity
  • When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don't turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist.

    Albert HofmannSwiss scientist
  • I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new consciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation.

    Albert HofmannSwiss scientist

April 20

  • Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around
    and I'll keep this world from draggin' me down
    gonna stand my ground and I won't back down.

    Tom PettyAmerican musician famous for his work in "Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers"
  • Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people — as may be noticed of most young children — does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years.

    Dinah Craik (born 20 April 1826) English novelist and poet

April 21

  • We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.

    J. G. BallardBritish novelist and short story writer
  • How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make — leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone — we all dwell in a house of one room — the world with the firmament for its roof — and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.

    John Muir (born 21 April 1838) American environmentalist, naturalist, writer, and scientist
  • If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people.

    Timothy LearyAmerican writer, psychologist and campaigner

April 22

  • The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

    Immanuel Kant (born 22 April 1724) German philosopher
  • There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.

    Marshall McLuhanCanadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist
  • We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. … We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

    Wendell BerryAmerican philosopher, poet, essayist, and social activist

April 23

  • I would not so dishonour God as to lend my voice to perpetuate all the mad and foolish things which men have dared to say of Him. I believe that we may find in the Bible the highest and purest religion ….. most of all in the history of Him in whose name we all are called. His religion — not the Christian religion, but the religion of Christ — the poor man's gospel; the message of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of love; and, oh, how gladly would I spend my life, in season and out of season, in preaching this! But I must have no hell terrors, none of these fear doctrines; they were not in the early creeds, God knows whether they were ever in the early gospels, or ever passed His lips. He went down to hell, but it was to break the chains, not to bind them.

    James Anthony Froude (born 23 April 1818) English historian, novelist, and biographer
  • We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again:
    And by that destiny, to perform an act
    Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
    In yours and my discharge.

    William Shakespeare in "The Tempest" (born 23 April 1564) English playwright and poet
  • A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

    Max Planck (born 23 April 1858) German physicists, founder of quantum theory

April 24

  • The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.

    Vincent de Paul (born 24 April 1581) Roman Catholic priest
  • The poem… is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see — it is, rather, a light by which we may see — and what we see is life.

    Robert Penn Warren (born 24 April 1905) American poet, novelist, and literary critic
  • One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere.

    William the Silent (born 24 April 1533) Main leader of the Dutch revolt against Spain

April 25

  • I will either find a way, or make one.

    HannibalPolitician, statesman and military commander of ancient Carthage
  • The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.

    Edward R. Murrow (born 25 April 1908) American journalist
  • It is best to keep one’s own state intact; to crush the enemy’s state is only second best.

    Sun TzuChinese General, military strategist, and author of "The Art of War"

April 26

  • Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.
    If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
    Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

    Ludwig Wittgenstein (born 26 April 1889) Austrian-born philosopher
  • I had the good fortune and opportunity to come home and to tell the truth; many soldiers, like Pat Tillman … did not have that opportunity. The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype.

    Jessica Lynch (born 26 April 1983) Former Quartermaster Corps Private First Class in the United States Army
  • If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine.

    Morris West (born 26 April 1916) Australian writer

April 27

  • No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

    Mary Wollstonecraft (born 27 April 1759) English social philosopher and pioneering advocate of women's rights
  • The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

    Herbert Spencer (born 27 April 1820) English philosopher and prominent classical liberal political theorist
  • It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

    Mary Wollstonecraft (born 27 April 1759) English social philosopher and pioneering advocate of women's rights

April 28

  • Too much magic could wrap time and space around itself, and that wasn't good news for the kind of person who had grown used to things like effects following things like causes.

    Terry Pratchett in "Sourcery" (born 28 April ) English fantasy author
  • The pen is mightier than the sword … if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.

    Terry Pratchett in "The Light Fantastic" (born 28 April ) English fantasy author
  • You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.

    Terry Pratchett (born 28 April ) English fantasy author

April 29

  • He who hopes to grow in spirit
    will have to transcend obedience and respect.
    He'll hold to some laws
    but he'll mostly violate
    both law and custom, and go beyond
    the established, inadequate norm.

    Constantine P. Cavafy (born 29 April 1863) Greek poet
  • The advance of science is not comparable to the changes of a city, where old edifices are pitilessly torn down to give place to new, but to the continuous evolution of zoologic types which develop ceaselessly and end by becoming unrecognizable to the common sight, but where an expert eye finds always traces of the prior work of the centuries past.

    Henri Poincaré (born 29 April 1854) One of France's greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists
  • Night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
    And some of our men who have just returned from the border say
    there are no barbarians any longer.Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
    Those people were a kind of solution.

    Constantine P. Cavafy (born 29 April 1863) Greek poet

April 30

  • Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance — embracing all opposites.

    Taisen Deshimaru (died 30 April 1982) Japanese Soto Zen Buddhist teacher
  • The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.

    Larry Niven (born 30 April 1938) American science fiction author, most famous for "Ringworld"
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