August 1

  • In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a sacred white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, — even though it be covertly, and by snatches.

    Herman Melville (born 1 August 1819) American novelist, essayist, and poet
  • All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.

    Herman Melville in "Moby-Dick" (born 1 August 1819) American novelist, essayist, and poet

August 2

  • Religious feeling is as much a verity as any other part of human consciousness; and against it, on the subjective side, the waves of science beat in vain.

    John Tyndall (born 2 August 1820) Irish physicist
  • Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.

    James Baldwin (born 2 August 1924) African-American novelist, short story writer and playwright
  • One writes out of one thing only — one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.

    James Baldwin (born 2 August 1924) African-American novelist, short story writer and playwright

August 3

  • I did not want to move. For I had the feeling that this was a place, once seen, that could not be seen again. If I left and then came back, it would not be the same; no matter how many times I might return to this particular spot the place and feeling would never be the same, something would be lost or something would be added, and there never would exist again, through all eternity, all the integrated factors that made it what it was in this magic moment.

    Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904) American science fiction writer
  • I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been concerned with where we, as a race, may be going and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme — if we have a purpose. In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one.

    Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904) American science fiction writer
  • Perhaps there was no limit, there might, quite likely, be no such condition as the ultimate; there might be no time when any creature or any group of creatures could stop at any certain point and say, this is as far as we can go, there is no use of trying to go farther. For each new development produced, as side effects, so many other possibilities, so many other roads to travel, that with each step one took down any given road there were more paths to follow. There'd never be an end, he thought — no end to anything.

    Clifford D. Simak (born 3 August 1904) American science fiction writer

August 4

  • I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
    And the nursling of the Sky;
    I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
    I change, but I cannot die.

    Percy Bysshe Shelley (born 4 August 1792) English romantic poet
  • Throughout American history, there have been moments that call on us to meet the challenges of an uncertain world, and pay whatever price is required to secure our freedom.

    Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961) The 44th President of the United States of America
  • Contrary to the rumours that you've heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.

    Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961) The 44th President of the United States of America

August 5

  • Do not think me gentle
    because I speak in praise
    of gentleness, or elegant
    because I honor the grace
    that keeps this world. I am
    a man crude as any,
    gross of speech, intolerant,
    stubborn, angry, full
    of fits and furies. That I
    may have spoken well
    at times, is not natural.
    A wonder is what it is.

    Wendell Berry (born 5 August 1934) American philosopher, poet and essayist
  • Those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

    Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRussian novelist, dramatist and historian
  • Tis true, my form is something odd
    but blaming me, is blaming God.
    Could I create myself anew
    I would not fail in pleasing you.

    Joseph Merrick (born 5 August 1862) English entertainer, famous as "The Elephant Man"

August 6

  • The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open.

    Charles Fort (born 6 August 1874) American writer and researcher
  • I hold it true, whate'er befall;
    I feel it, when I sorrow most;
    'Tis better to have loved and lost
    Than never to have loved at all.

    Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in "In Memoriam A.H.H." (born 6 August 1809) English poet
  • Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
    That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do: For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
    Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
    Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
    From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
    With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm; Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled
    In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
    And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.

    Alfred Tennyson (born 6 August 1809) English poet

August 7

  • Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.

    Garrison Keillor (born 7 August 1942) American novelist, humorist and comedian
  • The question isn't whether you have a good master or a bad master. It's to be your own master. That is the dignity of humanity.

    Alan Keyes (born 7 August 1950) American politician and diplomat
  • The real struggle is not between the right and the left but between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks.

    Jimmy WalesU.S. Internet entrepreneur and wiki pioneer

August 8

  • If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
    If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
    Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
    A lamp in darkness.

    Sara Teasdale (born 8 August 1884) American poet
  • If I am peaceful, I shall see
    Beauty's face continually;
    Feeding on her wine and bread
    I shall be wholly comforted,
    For she can make one day for me
    Rich as my lost eternity.

    Sara Teasdale (born 8 August 1884) American poet
  • No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.

    Shirley Jackson (died 8 August 1965) American author

August 9

  • For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question.

    P. L. Travers (born 9 August 1899) British author, creator of "Mary Poppins"
  • The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.

    Jean Piaget (born 9 August 1896) Swiss developmental psychologist

August 10

  • Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder — just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit.
    And, if they are human, then they must necessarily not be treated in an inhuman fashion. You cannot lower the moral baseline of a terrorist to the subhuman without betraying a fundamental value.

    Andrew Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) English libertarian conservative author and political commentator
  • We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn.

    Laurence Binyon (born 10 August 1869) English poet
  • The one thing we know about torture is that it was never designed in the first place to get at the actual truth of anything; it was designed in the darkest days of human history to produce false confessions in order to annihilate political and religious dissidents. And that is how it always works: it gets confessions regardless of their accuracy.

    Andrew Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) English libertarian conservative author and political commentator

August 11

  • If the world ever advances beyond what it is today, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.

    Robert G. Ingersoll (born 11 August 1833) American social activist, orator, and agnostic
  • There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.

    Robert G. Ingersoll (born 11 August 1833) American social activist, orator, and agnostic
  • Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.
    In this creed there will be but one word — Liberty.

    Robert G. Ingersoll (born 11 August 1833) American social activist, orator, and agnostic

August 12

  • There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.

    Edith Hamilton (born 12 August 1867) Classicist, educator and writer on mythology
  • It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated.

    Edith Hamilton (born 12 August 1867) Classicist, educator and writer on mythology
  • No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.

    George Soros (born 12 August 1930) Hungarian-born American businessman and political activist

August 13

  • The question what to believe is perhaps the most momentous that anyone can put to himself. Our beliefs are not to be classed among the luxuries, but among the necessaries of existence.

    Felix Adler (born 13 August 1851) American rationalist intellectual
  • It is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient.

    Felix Adler (born 13 August 1851) American rationalist intellectual
  • Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.

    Alfred Hitchcock (born 13 August 1899) British film director and producer

August 14

  • Time will rust the sharpest sword,
    Time will consume the strongest cord;
    That which molders hemp and steel,
    Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

    Walter Scott (born 14 August 1771) Scottish historical novelist and poet
  • Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong.

    Russell Baker (born 14 August 1925) American writer best known as a newspaper columnist
  • One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honour or observation.

    Walter Scott (born 14 August 1771) Scottish historical novelist and poet

August 15

  • The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience.

    Sri Aurobindo (born 15 August 1872) Indian nationalist, scholar, poet and mystic
  • A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.

    Napoleon I of France (born 15 August 1769) Corsican-born military general, the ruler of France from 1799-1804
  • If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds. I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

    Napoleon I of France (born 15 August 1769) Corsican-born military general, the ruler of France from 1799-1804

August 16

  • Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals. It can only be ensured by instinct, sharpened by thought practising the stroke so often that at the crisis it is as natural as a reflex.

    T. E. Lawrence (born 16 August 1888) British Army officer
  • It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.

    Jean de La Bruyère (born 16 August 1645) French essayist and moralist
  • Some men, like a tiled house, are long before they take fire, but once on flame there is no coming near to quench them.

    Thomas Fuller (died 16 August 1661) English preacher, historian, and scholar

August 17

  • To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.

    V. S. Naipaul (born 17 August 1932) British writer
  • Everything of value about me is in my books. Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will — with luck — come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise. That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing.

    V. S. Naipaul (born 17 August 1932) British writer
  • Most of authors seek fame, but I seek for justice — a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess.

    Davy Crockett (born 17 August 1786) American frontiersman, soldier and politician

August 18

  • Tho' the world could turn from you,
    This, at least, I learn from you:
    Beauty and Truth, tho' never found, are worthy to be sought,
    The singer, upward-springing,
    Is grander than his singing,
    And tranquil self-sufficing joy illumes the dark of thought.

    Robert Williams Buchanan (born 18 August 1841) Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist
  • Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!

    Vladimir Nabokov in "Lolita"Multilingual Russian-American novelist and short story writer
  • I saw the starry Tree
    Eternity
    Put forth the blossom Time.

    Robert Williams Buchanan (born 18 August 1841) Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist

August 19

  • Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
    They've need to show that they can think at all;
    Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
    He who would search for pearls, must dive below.

    John Dryden (born 19 August 1631) English poet, literary critic, and playwright
  • Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
    Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
    How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
    Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.

    John Dryden (born 19 August 1631) English poet, literary critic, and playwright
  • Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.

    Bernard Baruch (born 19 August 1870) American financier, stock market speculator and statesman

August 20

  • Science traditionally takes the reductionist approach, saying that the collective properties of molecules, or the fundamental units of whatever system you're talking about, are enough to account for all of the system's activity. But this standard approach leaves out one very important additional factor, and that's the spacing and timing of activity — its pattern or form.

    Roger Wolcott Sperry (born 20 August 1913) Neuropsychologist and neurobiologist
  • There probably is no more important quest in all science than the attempt to understand those very particular events in evolution by which brains worked out that special trick that has enabled them to add to the cosmic scheme of things: color, sound, pain, pleasure, and all the other facets of mental experience.

    Roger Wolcott Sperry (born 20 August 1913) Neuropsychologist and neurobiologist
  • The grand design of nature perceived broadly in four dimensions, including the forces that move the universe and created man, with special focus on evolution in our own biosphere, is something intrinsically good that it is right to preserve and enhance, and wrong to destroy and degrade.

    Roger Wolcott Sperry (born 20 August 1913) Neuropsychologist and neurobiologist

August 21

  • People ask me… "What do you still bring from Hawaii? How does it affect your character, how does it affect your politics?" I try to explain to them something about the Aloha Spirit. I try to explain to them this basic idea that we all have obligations to each other, that we're not alone, that if we see somebody who's in need we should help… that we look out for one another, that we deal with each other with courtesy and respect, and most importantly, that when you come from Hawaii, you start understanding that what's on the surface, what people look like — that doesn't determine who they are. And that the power and strength of diversity, the ability of people from everywhere … whether they're black or white, whether they're Japanese-Americans or Korean-Americans or Filipino-Americans or whatever they are, they are just Americans, that all of us can work together and all of us can join together to create a better country. And it's that spirit, that I'm absolutely convinced, is what America is looking for right now.

    Barack Obama (born 21 August 1961) The 44th President of the United States of America
  • A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

    Leon Trotsky (died 21 August 1940) Russian Marxist, intellectual, and revolutionary
  • The night was long and dark and just
    Another dagger to my trust.
    I thrust it in until I bleed
    I wiped my point for you to see. And anyway,
    It's over now.
    Nothing left to say.
    I don't know why,
    I don't care how,
    It's over anyway.

    Alicia Witt (born 21 August 1975) American actress, musician, singer, writer and director

August 22

  • Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.

    Claude Debussy (born 22 August 1862) French composer
  • Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.

    Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. (born 22 August 1934) American retired United States Army 4 Star General
  • A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory.

    Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (died 22 August 1903) British Conservative politician and Prime Minister

August 23

  • Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the pit from pole to pole,
    I thank whatever gods may be
    for my unconquerable soul.

    William Ernest Henley (born 23 August 1849) English poet, critic and editor
  • A few Cobras in your home will soon clear it of Rats and Mice. Of course, you will still have the Cobras.

    Will Cuppy (born 23 August 1884) American humorist, hermit, and self-styled curmudgeon
  • I never started to plow in my life
    That some one did not stop in the road
    And take me away to a dance or picnic.
    I ended up with forty acres;
    I ended up with a broken fiddle —
    And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
    And not a single regret.

    Edgar Lee Masters (born 23 August 1868) American poet, biographer and dramatist, famous for "Spoon River Anthology"

August 24

  • Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
    Old Time is still a-flying;
    And this same flower that smiles today,
    Tomorrow will be dying.

    Robert HerrickEnglish poet
  • A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

    Jorge Luis Borges (born 24 August 1899) Argentine writer, best-known for his short stories
  • Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world.

    Jorge Luis Borges (born 24 August 1899) Argentine writer, best-known for his short stories

August 25

  • My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant, someone who disrupts the daily drag of life just enough to leave the victim thinking there's maybe more to it all than the mere hum-drum quality of existence.

    Elvis Costello (born 25 August 1954) English musician, singer, and songwriter
  • Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.

    Friedrich NietzscheGerman philosopher
  • Calmly take what ill betideth;
    Patience wins the crown at length
    Rich repayment him abideth
    Who endures in quiet strength.
    Brave the tamer of the lion;
    Brave whom conquered kingdoms praise;
    Bravest he who rules his passions,
    Who his own impatience sways.

    Johann Gottfried Herder (born 25 August 1744) German poet, philosopher and literary critic

August 26

  • If you can't see God in All, You can't see God at All.

    Harbhajan Singh Yogi (born 26 August 1929) Spiritual leader and entrepreneur, promoting Sikhism and Kundalini yoga
  • I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.

    Christopher Isherwood (born 26 August 1904) British-American writer
  • Happiness comes out of contentment, and contentment always comes out of service.

    Harbhajan Singh Yogi (born 26 August 1929) Spiritual leader and entrepreneur, promoting Sikhism and Kundalini yoga

August 27

  • For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

    Ted KennedySenior Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts
  • In every science, after having analysed the ideas, expressing the more complicated by means of the more simple, one finds a certain number that cannot be reduced among them, and that one can define no further. These are the primitive ideas of the science; it is necessary to acquire them through experience, or through induction; it is impossible to explain them by deduction.

    Giuseppe Peano (born 27 August 1858) Italian mathematician, founder of modern mathematical logic
  • Ambiguity of language is philosophy's main source of problems. That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use.

    Giuseppe Peano (born 27 August 1858) Italian mathematician, founder of modern mathematical logic

August 28

  • What is the use of being wise if we are not sometimes merry? The merriment of wise men is not the uninformed, gross fun of ignorant men, but it has more kinship with that than the pinched, frightened fun of those who are neither learned nor ignorant, gentle nor simple, bound nor free. The idea that a wise man must be solemn is bred and preserved among people who have no idea what wisdom is, and can only respect whatever makes them feel inferior.

    Robertson Davies (born 28 August 1913) Canadian novelist, playwright and critic
  • To which of the warring serpents should I turn with the problem that now faces me?
    It is easy, and tempting, to choose the god of Science. Now I would not for a moment have you suppose that I am one of those idiots who scorns Science, merely because it is always twisting and turning, and sometimes shedding its skin, like the serpent that is its symbol. It is a powerful god indeed but it is what the students of ancient gods called a shape-shifter, and sometimes a trickster.

    Robertson Davies (born 28 August 1913) Canadian novelist, playwright and critic
  • I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.

    Michel de MontaigneFrench Renaissance writer

August 29

  • Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The Creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing — until there is only … the dance.

    Michael Jackson (born 29 August 1958) American recording artist and entertainer, famous for "Thriller"
  • Mankind has advanced. Human progress is ceaseless. We can … conclude that building just societies is a fool's errand. We are always, despite our advances, only one sin away from slipping into the abyss of terror and ignorance. But that is not so. Generations upon generations have driven the human race farther and farther from darkness.

    John McCain (born 29 August 1936) American politician, presidential candidate in the 2000 election
  • Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (born 29 August 1809) American physician, writer and poet

August 30

  • The animals of the Burgess Shale are holy objects — in the unconventional sense that this word conveys in some cultures. We do not place them on pedestals and worship from afar. We climb mountains and dynamite hillsides to find them. We quarry them, split them, carve them, draw them, and dissect them, struggling to wrest their secrets. We vilify and curse them for their damnable intransigence. They are grubby little creatures of a sea floor 530 million years old, but we greet them with awe because they are the Old Ones, and they are trying to tell us something.

    Stephen Jay GouldAmerican geologist, paleontologist and evolutionary biologist
  • Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

    Warren Buffett (born 30 August 1930) American investor and the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
  • If you're in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.

    Warren Buffett (born 30 August 1930) American investor and the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

August 31

  • There's not a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between extremists and moderates of all the religions. … What is important is not to live in fear. The most dangerous thing to do is to give up and lose hope. The main enemy is not terrorism or extremism, but ignorance.

    Queen Rania of Jordan (born 31 August 1970) The Queen consort of King Abdullah II, the king of Jordan
  • The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy — the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops.

    William Saroyan (born 31 August 1908) Armenian American author, famous for "The Human Comedy"
  • The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.

    Eldridge Cleaver (born 31 August 1935) Prominent American civil rights leader
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