Quote O' The Day

[Krandall]

"Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?" -G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton was one of the most well-known writers of his era (the early 20th century), and The Man Who Was Thursday, from which this quote comes, is perhaps his best-known novel.

[Krandall]

"Yet there are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say." -Cyril Connolly


Connolly was an English writer, literary critic and friend of George Orwell (with whom he went to school, and whom he bested for first place in a prestigious history competition). The Unquiet Grave is a collection of quotes and aphorisms written by Connolly under the pseudonym Palinurus.

[Krandall]

[Today at 10:28:56 AM] Geo: asshole felt like it was rippin and bleedin
[Today at 10:28:59 AM] PeelsSE2: yummy geo

[Krandall]

"A man's ethic usually reflects his character, and benevolence leads to a desire for the general happiness." -Bertrand Russell

Russell is among the most well-known philosophers of the 20th century. This line is from his History of Western Philosophy.

[Krandall]

"Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people." -James Fitzjames Stephen

Stephen was an English writer and judge (as well as Virginia Woolf's uncle). The above quote is from Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

[Krandall]

[Today at 03:54:26 PM] Langford: smash 3 white girls names together = black girl name

[Krandall]

"The style is the man." -Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon


Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was a French intellectual and a contemporary of Voltaire. Though not nearly as well known as Voltaire, he was similarly a champion of rationalism (long before Darwin, Buffon wrote the 44-volume Histoire naturelle, which articulated an early version of evolution, and even of the common ancestry of men and apes). He joined the Academie Francaise in 1753, where he delivered his "Discours sur le style," from which this quote comes.

[Krandall]

"Press on, then, to the finish. Cast away vain hopes, and if you have any regard at all for self, see to your own security while still you may." -Marcus Aurelius


From the philosopher-emperor's Meditations, this summation is part of a long reflection on the mortality of man. After laying out the groundwork of his stoic philosophy, Aurelius concludes: "Even men who deny the gods or betray their country or perpetrate all manner of villainy behind locked doors have minds to guide them to the clear path of duty. Seeing, then, that all else is the common heritage of such types, the good man's only singularity lies in his approving welcome to every experience the looms of fate may weave for him."

[Krandall]

"All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Though Goethe was extraordinarily accomplished in various fields throughout his life, he remains best-known for Faust, the 1806 play about the legendary scholar who sells his soul to the devil. The legend is said to be based on the life of Johann Georg Faust, an actual German alchemist from the early 16th century, though very little about the historical Faust's life is known, and what is known is often suspect (for example, that he traveled with a dog who would transform into a human servant). The legend was popularized by Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, which itself was based on a widely circulated book of Faust lore.

[phucker]

Geo: i went fri and sat mornings at 8am
Geo: going to be changing my routine up now
phucker: not doin guys anymore huh?
phucker: the truck stop wont be the same without you

[Geo]

  not really sure how that's qotd, but whatever makes ya feel important...

[phucker]

i just found it funny. guess i was the only one. 

[Krandall]

i just found it funny. guess i was the only one. 

now THATS funny

[Krandall]

"A man's success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want." -Gerald Stanley Lee

Lee was an early 20th-century author and clergyman; this quote is from his Crowds: A Moving-Picture of Democracy. "Success in business, in the last analysis, turns upon touching the imagination of crowds," Lee writes. "When one considers what it is that touches a crowd's imagination and how it does it, one is bound to admit that there is not a city anywhere which has not hundreds of men in it who could do more to touch the imagination of crowds with goodness than any clergyman could. A man of very great gifts in the pulpit, a man of genius, even an immortal clergyman, could be outwitted in the art of touching the imagination of crowds with goodness by a comparatively ordinary man in any one of several hundred of our modern business occupations."

[Krandall]

"Delicacy and subtlety are the only true signs of talent. Everything else can be imitated." -Joseph Joubert

The French essayist Joubert is mostly remembered for his Pensees ("Thoughts"), published after his death by contemporary Chateaubriand. This quote continues: "There is no good and beautiful style that is not full of subtleties, but of delicate subtleties.... force, gravity, vehemence, even ease; but subtlety and delicacy are impossible to counterfeit for long. Without these, your wholesome style expresses only an upright mind."