Embarrassingly enough, I like this country. But everything good about it has been the product of centuries of people who had no reason to hope for better but chose to believe that better things were possible, clawing their way uphill—protesting, marching, voting, and, yes, doing the work of journalism—to build this fragile thing called democracy.
— Alexandra Petri (this is globalpedia not Americapedia and that means everything to me about this place, but a lot of my content is MURICA-related and thus so are some of these quotes)
It is [the writer's] privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
— William Faulkner, Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Sorry was I being too loud? In the house I bought? With the money I made? From the songs I wrote? About my own life?
I don't think Wikipedia understands its content creators anywhere near as well as webpages with a similar ranking. That might be the secret of its success, with obsessive people just being left alone to do their thing, or it might be a problem—truly, who can say?
— User:Project Osprey, replying to Clovermoss's editor reflections questionaire
Because of the diversity of sources and of the fallibility of human memory, it is suggested that documentary material be consulted in verifying data in this volume...
— Wrapper accompanying WPA-produced county history (1938), but timeless advice
Wishes nothing—perseverance everything.
— Benjamin Lundy, 1831
Historians have been called lots of things, not all of them nice. "Broad-gauge gossips," according to Ambrose Bierce. "Unsuccessful novelists," in the eyes of H. L. Mencken. Tolstoy dismissed historians as being "like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them," while Guy de Maupassant quipped history was an "excitable and lying old lady."
— Carole Emberton, 2019
I don't want to worship at the cross of a man who kills his son in the name of salvation. I don't want to worship at an altar that denies the poor and the hungry and the enslaved, telling us to wait for heaven to be free. I don't want a God that denies the beauty of women, belying the beauty of the earth. I want the gifts of the mother, and I vow to find my way back to her...Mother Earth doesn't turn women who look back into pillars of salt.
— Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult by Michelle Dowd
Each worker ends up doing the thing they’re best at relative to the other things they could be doing, rather than the thing they’re best at relative to other people.
— Noahpinion, explaining comparative advantage
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
— Isaiah 6:8 (Taken out its religious-martial-apocalyptic context, I think the volunteer spirit encoded here is one of the things that makes Wikipedia and the world a functional place; people just pitch in to make things better where and how they can.)
People had more than they needed, people didn't know what was precious and what wasn't, people threw away things they kill each other for now.
— The Book of Eli (2010)
Like many other historians, I cringe when I hear people saying, "This is not who we are." Because historically, it is who we are. Again and again. I think it's better to say, "This is not who I want us to be." And then ask yourself what you can do to change that?
— Jacqueline Antonovich, Jan 7 2021
Mistakes are encouraged here. If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying new things and challenging yourself.
— Unknown
Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you're getting the best possible information.
— Michael Scott, The Office, "The Negotiation" by Michael Schur
The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to make sure you have as much as them.
The job is love.
— My husband
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!— Langston Hughes (1935)
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.
The hours are bad and the pay sucks, but at least at the end of the day everyone hates you.
— An old saying aboutediting Wikipediajournalism
wikipedia, after ideological republicanism, is the most successful utopian project in history
— @revhowardarson
The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.
It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.
— Attributed to Harry S. Truman
Teach everything you know.
— T-shirt I saw at Big Lots
- ^ Cohen, Noam (April 23, 2007). "The Latest on Virginia Tech, From Wikipedia". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.