# September 21

Quotes of the day from previous years:

## 2004

    Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. ~ H. G. Wells (born 21 September 1866)
   * selected by Kalki

## 2005

    Hope is a good thing — maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies. ~ "Andy Dufresne" in The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King (born 21 September 1947)
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2006

    Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free. ~ Leonard Cohen ~ (born 21 September 1934)
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2007

    Life begins perpetually. Gathered together at last under the leadership of man, the student-teacher of the universe... unified, disciplined, armed with the scret powers of the atom, and with knowledge as yet beyond dreaming, Life, forever dying to be born afresh, forever young and eager, will presently stand upon this earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars. ~ H. G. Wells
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2008

    I'm guided by a signal in the heavens, I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. ~ Leonard Cohen ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2009

    Ah, you loved me as a loser, But now you're worried that I just might win. You know the way to stop me, But you don't have the discipline. How many nights I prayed for this, To let my work begin. First we take Manhattan, Then we take Berlin. ~ Leonard Cohen ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2010

    The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear. ~ Stephen King
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2011

    No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet, across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. ~ H. G. Wells
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2012

* While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.
* ~ H. G. Wells ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2013

* If you're squeezed for information, that's when you've got to play it dumb: You just say you're out there waiting for the miracle to come.
* ~ Leonard Cohen ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2014

* I did my best, it wasn't much I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you. And even though it all went wrong I'll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.
* ~ Leonard Cohen ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2015

* The only deadly sin I know is cynicism.
* ~ Henry L. Stimson ~
   * proposed by Zarbon

## 2016

* I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I cain't.
* ~ Stephen King ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2017

* Maybe… there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends — maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.
* ~ Stephen King ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2018

* There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope.
* ~ H. G. Wells ~
   * proposed by bystander

## 2019

* You couldn't get hold of the things you'd done and turn them right again. Such a power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to women and men, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.
* ~ Stephen King ~
   * proposed by bystander

## 2020

* What fascinates me — mesmerizes me — isn't so much Trump himself as the American government he's crafted: a major world power with no policy, no consistency, and no idea what it's doing.
* ~ Stephen King ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2021

* What it is to bathe every day, always to be clad beautifully, to climb mountains for pleasure, to fly, to meet none but agreeable, well mannered people, to conduct researches or make delightful things... a time when all such good things will be for all men may be coming more nearly than we think. Each one who believes that brings the good time nearer; each heart that fails delays it.
* ~ H. G. Wells ~ in ~ The Outline of History ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2022

* Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on. And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song. Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.
* ~ Leonard Cohen ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2023

* Our job is to pursue justice, without fear or favor. Our job is not to do what is politically convenient. Our job is not to take orders from the President, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate. As the President himself has said, and I reaffirm today: I am not the President’s lawyer. I will also add I am not Congress’s prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people. Our job is to follow the facts and the law. And that is what we do.
* ~ Merrick Garland ~
   * proposed by Kalki

## 2024

* It's coming to America first The cradle of the best and of the worst It's here they got the range And the machinery for change And it's here they got the spiritual thirst It's here the family's broken And it's here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
* ~ Leonard Cohen ~
   * 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

       International Day of Peace · DOB: Leonard Cohen · Stephen King · Henry L. Stimson · H. G. Wells
Husbands should be like Kleenex: soft, strong, and desposable. ~ (Miss White, Clue)
* 5 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.167.242.65 (talk • contribs) 05:14, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
* 1 Kalki 00:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC) 2 Kalki 22:13, 20 September 2005 (UTC) No clear correlation with the date.
* 1 Unpithy, no humor even harmful. And who is it? --Aphaia 08:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
* 1 Zarbon 23:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
* 0 N6n 15:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I lift my glass to the awful truth which you can't reveal to the ears of youth except to say it isn't worth a dime~ Leonard Cohen
    —This unsigned comment is by D is for d (talk • contribs) .
* 2 N6n 15:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
* 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:04, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Behind everything I perceive the smile that makes all effort and discipline temporary, all the stress and pain of life endurable. In the last resort I do not care whether I am seated on a throne or drunk or dying in a gutter. I follow my leading. In the ultimate I know, though I cannot prove my knowledge in any way whatever, that everything is right and all things mine. ~ H. G. Wells
* 3 N6n 04:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
* 2 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 20:11, 19 September 2014 (UTC) but with a lean toward an eventual 3 or 4. 3 Kalki (talk · contributions) 11:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
* 3 bystander (talk) 04:05, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think there was anything in my brain right then except the usual background static -- the kind you get on your radio when it's turned up all the way and tuned to no station at all. My brain had checked to the power, so to speak; the little guy wearing the Napoleon hat inside was showing aces and betting them. ~ Stephen King
* 3 bystander (talk) 04:05, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
* I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight Getting lost in that hopeless little screen But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags That time cannot decay I'm junk but I'm still holding up This little wild bouquet Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
* ~ Leonard Cohen ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:22, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
* It's coming through a hole in the air From those nights in Tiananmen Square It's coming from the feel That it ain't exactly real Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there From the war against disorder From the sirens night and day From the fires of the homeless From the ashes of the gay Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
* ~ Leonard Cohen ~
* 3 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:22, 20 September 2024 (UTC)