# January 7

Quotes of the day from previous years:

## 2004

    Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
   * selected by Kalki

## 2005

    The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. ~ Abraham Lincoln
   * selected by Kalki

## 2006

    There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in. ~ Gerald Durrell (born 7 January 1925)
   * proposed by UDScott

## 2007

    It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? ~ Richard Feynman (speaking of art, reality, and Jupiter, which Galileo Galilei discovered to have moons on this day in 1610)
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2008

    You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that you have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is not only vital for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself — a point that seems to escape many people. ~ Gerald Durrell (born 7 January 1925)
   * proposed by InvisibleSun

## 2009

    There are years that ask questions and years that answer. ~ Zora Neale Hurston
   * proposed by InvisibleSun

## 2010

    When I take people round to see my animals, one of the first questions they ask (unless the animal is cute and appealing) is, "what use is it?" by which they mean, "what use is it to them?" To this one can reply "What use is the Acropolis?" Does a creature have to be of direct material use to mankind in order to exist? By and large, by asking the question "what use is it?" you are asking the animal to justify its existence without having justified your own. ~ Gerald Durrell
   * proposed by InvisibleSun

## 2011

    We have inherited an incredibly beautiful and complex garden, but the trouble is that we have been appallingly bad gardeners. We have not bothered to acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of gardening. By neglecting our garden, we are storing up for ourselves, in the not very distant future, a world catastrophe as bad as any atomic war, and we are doing it with all the bland complacency of an idiot child chopping up a Rembrandt with a pair of scissors. ~ Gerald Durrell
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2012

    Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much. ~ Zora Neale Hurston
   * proposed by InvisibleSun

## 2013

* The whole country is full of enterprise. Our common schools are diffusing intelligence among the people and our industry is fast accumulating the comforts and luxuries of life. … It is not strange, however much it may be regretted, that such an exuberance of enterprise should cause some individuals to mistake change for progress and the invasion of the rights of others for national prowess and glory.
* ~ Millard Fillmore ~

## 2014

* Until we consider animal life to be worthy of the consideration and reverence we bestow upon old books and pictures and historic monuments, there will always be the animal refugee living a precarious life on the edge of extermination, dependent for existence on the charity of a few human beings.
* ~ Gerald Durrell ~
   * proposed by InvisibleSun

## 2015

* Anyone who has got any pleasure at all from living should try to put something back. … I'm glad to be giving something back because I've been so extraordinarily lucky and had such great pleasure from it.
* ~ Gerald Durrell ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2016

* We now stand so aloof from nature that we think we are God. This has always been a dangerous supposition.
* ~ Gerald Durrell ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2017

* May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.
* ~ Millard Fillmore ~
   * proposed by Zarbon

## 2018

* Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before.
* ~ Millard Fillmore ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2019

* Many people think that conservation is just about saving fluffy animals – what they don’t realise is that we’re trying to prevent the human race from committing suicide … We have declared war on the biological world, the world that supports us … At the moment the human race is in the position of a man sawing off the tree branch he is sitting on.
* ~ Gerald Durrell ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2020

* I accept this idea of democracy. I am all for trying it out. It must be a good thing if everybody praises it like that. If our government has been willing to go to war and sacrifice billions of dollars and millions of men for the idea I think that I ought to give the thing a trial. The only thing that keeps me from pitching head long into this thing is the presence of numerous Jim Crow laws on the statute books of the nation. I am crazy about the idea of Democracy. I want to see how it feels.
* ~ Zora Neale Hurston ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2021

* We're debating a step that has never been taken in American history. Whether Congress should overrule the voters and overturn a Presidential election. … President Trump claims the election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations to Constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories. I supported the President's right to use the legal system, dozens of lawsuits received hearings in courtrooms all across our country, but over and over, the courts rejected these claims, including all-star judges whom the President himself has nominated. … The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. They've all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever. … If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. Self-government, my colleagues, requires a shared commitment to the truth and a shared respect for the ground rules of our system. We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and separate realities, with nothing in common except our hostility towards each other and mistrust for the few national institutions that we all still share. Congress will either override the voters, overrule them, the voters, the states, and the courts for the first time ever, or honor the people's decision. I will not pretend such a vote would be a harmless protest gesture while relying on others to do the right thing. I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.
* ~ Mitch McConnell ~
   * proposed by Kalki, in regard to historical issues and events which have occurred on this date.

## 2022

* My fellow Americans, in life, there’s truth and, tragically, there are lies — lies conceived and spread for profit and power. We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie. And here is the truth: The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He’s done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interests as more important than his country’s interests and America’s interests, and because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution. He can’t accept he lost, even though that’s what 93 United States senators, his own Attorney General, his own Vice President, governors and state officials in every battleground state have all said: He lost. That’s what 81 million of you did as you voted for a new way forward. He has done what no president in American history — the history of this country — has ever, ever done: He refused to accept the results of an election and the will of the American people.
* ~ Joe Biden ~
   * proposed by Kalki, as recent significant remarks upon historically significant events.

## 2023

* An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory.
* ~ Millard Fillmore ~
   * proposed by Zarbon

## 2024

* Gods always behave like the people who make them.
* ~ Zora Neale Hurston ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2025

    Rank or add further suggestions…
The Quote of the Day (QOTD) is a prominent feature of the Wikiquote Main Page. Thank you for submitting, reviewing, and ranking suggestions!

   ## Ranking system

    4 : Excellent – should definitely be used. (This is the utmost ranking and should be used by any editor for only one quote at a time for each date.)
    3 : Very Good – strong desire to see it used.
    2 : Good – some desire to see it used.
    1 : Acceptable – but with no particular desire to see it used.
    0 : Not acceptable – not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
    An averaging of the rankings provided to each suggestion produces it’s general ranking in considerations for selection of Quote of the Day. The selections made are usually chosen from the top ranked options existing on the page, but the provision of highly ranked late additions, especially in regard to special events (most commonly in regard to the deaths of famous people, or other major social or physical occurrences), always remain an option for final selections.
    Thank you for participating!

## Suggestions

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. ~ Zora Neale Hurston (born January 7, 1891)
* 3 InvisibleSun 09:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
* 1 Zarbon 17:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
* 3 Triviaa 04:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see. ~ Zora Neale Hurston
* 3 InvisibleSun 09:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
* 1 Zarbon 17:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
* 2 Triviaa 04:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
* 2 Kalki 00:21, 6 January 2009 (UTC); but extended for context to read:
       Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops---which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair. ~ William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist (dob)
* 3 bystander (talk) 23:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC) 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 17:27, 6 January 2013 (UTC); but corrected and extended to read:
       The sun sinks to rise again; the day is swallowed up in the gloom of night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it had never been quenched. Spring passes into summer, and through summer and autumn into winter, only the more surely, by its own ultimate return, to triumph over that grave towards which it resolutely hastened from its first hour. We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to wither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops — which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair.
Would you like to hear a nice definition of jealousy? It's the feeling that you get when someone you absolutely detest is having a wonderful time without you. ~ William Peter Blatty, Legion
* 3 bystander (talk) 23:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
* 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 17:27, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
* Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.
* ~ Zora Neale Hurston ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 22:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
* They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
* ~ Zora Neale Hurston ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 22:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
* Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.
* ~ Zora Neale Hurston ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 22:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
* Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.
* ~ Zora Neale Hurston ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 22:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
* If you haven’t got it, you can’t show it. If you have got it, you can’t hide it.
* ~ Zora Neale Hurston ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 22:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
* I believe that we all have a foot in two worlds. The one that we’re conscious of is in time, but now and then a freak like me gets a flash from the other foot, and that one, I think, is in eternity, where time does not exist and so the future and the past are both the present. So now and again when I’m feeling a tingling in that other foot, I believe that I’m seeing the future.
* ~ William Peter Blatty ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
* We have familiar experience of the order, the constancy, the perpetual renovation of the material world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory as is every part of it, restless and migratory as are its elements, still it abides. It is bound together by a law of permanence, and though it is ever dying, it is ever coming to life again. Dissolution does but give birth to fresh modes of organization, and one death is the parent of a thousand lives. Each hour, as it comes, is but a testimony how fleeting, yet how secure, how certain, is the great whole.
* ~ William Peter Blatty ~
* 4 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC)