# February 4

Quotes of the day from previous years:

## 2004

    If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel. ~ Jim Morrison
   * selected by Kalki

## 2005

    Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation, in turn, becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on to the future. ~ Charles Lindbergh (born 4 February 1902)
   * selected by Kalki

## 2006

    If one took no chances, one would not fly at all. Safety lies in the judgment of the chances one takes. That judgment, in turn, must rest upon one’s outlook on life. Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. ~ Charles Lindbergh (born 4 February 1902)
   * selected by Kalki

## 2007

    Men weren't really the enemy — they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill. ~ Betty Friedan
   * proposed by Fys

## 2008

    Mistakes are part of the game. It's how well you recover from them, that's the mark of a great player. ~ Alice Cooper (born 4 February 1948)
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2009

    How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life. This is our modern danger — one of the waxen wings of flight. It may cause our civilization to fall unless we act quickly to counteract it, unless we realize that human character is more important than efficiency, that education consists of more than the mere accumulation of knowledge. ~ Charles Lindbergh
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2010

    If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes. ~ Charles Lindbergh
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2011

    Getting up and criticising the other fellow because he's in and you are not seems to me a futile waste of time. Especially as you know in your heart that you would be doing more or less the same thing if you were in his place. ~ Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2012

    I grow aware of various forms of man and of myself. I am form and I am formless, I am life and I am matter, mortal and immortal. I am one and many — myself and humanity in flux. I extend a multiple of ways in experience in space. I am myself now, lying on my back in the jungle grass, passing through the ether between satellites and stars. My aging body transmits an ageless life stream. Molecular and atomic replacement change life's composition. Molecules take part in structure and in training, countless trillions of them. After my death, the molecules of my being will return to the earth and sky. They came from the stars. I am of the stars. ~ Charles Lindbergh
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2013

* I know myself as mortal, but this raises the question: "What is I?" Am I an individual, or am I an evolving life stream composed of countless selves? … As one identity, I was born in AD 1902. But as AD twentieth-century man, I am billions of years old. The life I consider as myself has existed though past eons with unbroken continuity. Individuals are custodians of the life stream — temporal manifestations of far greater being, forming from and returning to their essence like so many dreams.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2014

* Why should we look for his errors when a brave man dies? Unless we can learn from his experience, there is no need to look for weakness. Rather, we should admire the courage and spirit in his life. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die?
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2015

* In some future incarnation from our life stream, we may even understand the reason for our existence in forms of earthly life. The growing knowledge of science does not refute man's intuition of the mystical. Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or in time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2016

* I believe we are on an irreversible trend towards more freedom and democracy, but that could change.
* ~ Dan Quayle ~
   * proposed by Fys

## 2017

* I have not heard a word of respect or compassion spoken of our enemy since I came here. It is not the willingness to kill on the part of our soldiers which most concerns me. That is an inherent part of war. It is our lack of respect for even the admirable characteristics of our enemy — for courage, for suffering, for death, for his willingness to die for his beliefs, for his companies and squadrons which go forth, one after another, to annihilation against our superior training and equipment. What is courage for us is fanaticism for him. We hold his examples of atrocity screamingly to the heavens while we cover up our own and condone them as just retribution for his acts.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2018

* The war might stop this winter, but that is improbable. It may go on for fifty years or more. That also is improbable. The elements are too conflicting and confused to form any accurate judgment of its length. There may be a series of wars, one after another, going on indefinitely. Possibly the world will come to its senses sooner than I expect. But, as I have often said, the environment of human life has changed more rapidly and more extensively in recent years than it has ever changed before. When environment changes, there must be a corresponding change in life. That change must be so great that it is not likely to be completed in a decade or in a generation.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2019

* When I go onstage as Alice to this day, I play Alice to the hilt — I play him for everything he is worth, but when I’m offstage, I never think about Alice Cooper. He never occurs to me. … I walk off stage though and I turn away from the audience, I go back to being me again. Whenever I see an audience, that’s when I turn into Alice. If there was no audience there, there would be no reason to be Alice. … If I tried to be Alice Cooper all the time — I’d either be in an insane asylum or in jail or dead. Alice is just too intense, and you just can’t be Alice all the time.
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2020

* I recall standing on the edge of a deep valley in the Hawaiian island of Maui, thinking that the life stream is like a mountain river — springing from hidden sources, born out of the earth, touched by stars, merging, blending, evolving in the shape momentarily seen. It is molecules probing through time, found smooth-flowing, adjusted to shaped and shaping banks, roiled by rocks and tree trunks — composed again. Now it ends, apparently, at a lava brink, a precipitous fall. Near the fall's brink, I saw death as death cannot be seen. I stared at the very end of life, and at life that forms beyond, at the fact of immortality. Dark water bent, broke, disintegrated, transformed to apparition — a tall, stately ghost soul emerged from body, and the finite individuality of the whole becomes the infinite individuality of particles. Mist drifted, disappeared in air, a vanishing of spirit. Far below in the valley, I saw another river, reincarnated from the first, its particles reorganized to form a second body. It carried the same name. It was similar in appearance. It also ended at a lava brink. Flow followed fall, and fall followed flow as I descended the mountainside. The river was mortal and immortal as life, as becoming.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2021

* Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2022

* We remain vigilant. We remain prepared. Last night's operation took a major terrorist leader off the battlefield. And it sent a strong message to terrorists around the world: We will come after you and find you. Once again, today, we continue our unceasing effort to keep the American people safe and to strengthen the security of our Allies and partners around the world. I want to thank you all. And may God bless you. And may God protect our troops.
* ~ Joe Biden ~

## 2023

* I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2024

* All that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. Fortunately, in spite of all that has been said, the oceans are still difficult to cross; and we have the time to adjust and prepare.
* ~ Charles Lindbergh ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2025

* It's so funny that people think I actually ran for President. I am maybe the most un-political person you're ever going to meet. When I put "Elected" out, it was definitely a satire ... "Alice Cooper for President" ... When everybody realized I was running against Nixon, you know — even on a joke level — I think I got a lot of write-in votes.
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2026

    Rank or add further suggestions…
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:
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

The feminine mystique has succeeded in burying millions of American women alive. ~ Betty Friedan, born February 4, 1921, died February 4, 2006.
* 3. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 23:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
* 3 InvisibleSun 17:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
* 1 Kalki (talk · contributions) 11:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC) 3 Kalki 23:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
* 2 Zarbon 21:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's rebellion. ~ Alice Cooper (Vincent Damon Furnier), born February 4, 1948.
* 3. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 23:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
* 2 InvisibleSun 17:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
* 2 Kalki 23:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
* 1 Zarbon 21:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself. ~ Betty Friedan
* 3 Kalki 23:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
* 3 InvisibleSun 23:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
* 1 Zarbon 04:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia. ~ Charles Lindbergh
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 02:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC) with a lean toward 4.
* Man's got his woman to take his seed He's got the power — oh She's got the need She spends her life through pleasing up her man She feeds him dinner or anything she can. She cries alone at night too often He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all. Only women bleed...
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
* I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing 'Til they got a hold of me. I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see. I got no friends 'cause they read the papers. They can't be seen with me and I'm gettin' real shot down And I'm feeling mean. No more Mister Nice Guy, No more Mister Clean, No more Mister Nice Guy, They say he's sick, he's obscene.
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
* If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
* Humans make lousy gods, I think. We need to let God be God and us be what we are. I think that’s what changes: the focus on who you’re serving. You’re not serving you. You’re serving Christ.
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
* Sometimes I think that TV evangelism is one of Satan’s greatest weapons. They put these guys on a pedestal and all of a sudden they get caught with a prostitute, and every Christian I know then is under the gun.
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
* I’m telling you, the Devil is very smart. He’s not going to come out with the horns and the tail. He’s going to come in as the slickest car salesman you ever saw – and I’ve seen some pretty slick pastors on TV.
* ~ Alice Cooper ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 3 February 2025 (UTC)