Quote of the Day: 10 July 2025 #QotD

“The State has no tool delicate enough to deracinate the rooted habits and tangled affections of the family; the two sexes, whether happy or unhappy, are glued together too tightly for us to get the blade of a legal penknife in between them.” -G. K. Chesterton
[Given that this was written one hundred fifteen years ago, there have been a fair few attempts between then and now to do just this. Not that it has been anything as delicate as a penknife. but more akin to a heavy ax wielded with reckless abandon. The family still stands. For now. I intend to defend it, personally.]

Quote of the Day: 9 July 2025 #QotD

“The real battle for your own soul isn’t about falling from a great height; it’s about descending, or not, one choice at a time.” -Harry Dresden, Battle Ground
[Especially with how gradual it is. You will find yourself somewhere you never intended to be, but the great thing is that you can work your way back to where you want to be. Salvation is available.]

Quote of the Day: 8 July 2025 #QotD

“But the call of life is as powerful as the call of death, and it is no weakness to answer to it.” -Helen, Queen of Eddis, Return of the Thief
[Go live life. Experience the joy of living a full life of enriching events and people. It's worth it.]

Quote of the Day: 7 July 2025 #QotD

“War is not good, but it is required when the alternative is worse.” -Ashok Vadal, Graveyard of Demons
[The violence-never-solved-anything crowd doesn't seem to get this. There are times when push come to shove, and something has to be done.]

Quote of the Day: 6 July 2025 #QotD

“We are followers of Jesus Christ, and we seek to both receive and share His light.” -Gary E. Stevenson

Quote of the Day: 5 July 2025 #QotD

“I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be persuading us to break rules.” -Ron Weasley, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
[Every once in a while, you find the exceptional case where rules just cannot dictate your actions.]

Quote of the Day: 4 July 2025 #QotD

“There is arguably no more universal symbol of America than the hamburger. It is as close to a national dish as we have, and just like the American project itself, the burger is reflective of both our regional uniqueness and our national unity.” -Nick Solares
[We could all use a few more symbols of unity at the moment.]

Quote of the Day: 4 July 2025 #QotD

“He was fairly happy, except that, like many people living in Europe, he would rather have been in America[.]” -Jake Barnes, The Sun Also Rises
[Happy Independence Day!]

Quote of the Day: 3 July 2025 #QotD

“The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily.” -Maj. Reid, Starship Troopers
[So, what do we do when it begins not to work satisfactorily? Have we reached that point? Are we able to restore the portions we are missing to be able to make it work satisfactorily again? All good questions that deserve proper reflection and difficult wrangling.]

Quote of the Day: 2 July 2025 #QotD

“America is a shared idea. We’re people who think in a certain way, who believe that they can do the things they want to do. Everything else follows from that. It’s confidence, optimism, the one thing that other countries find so strange about us.” -Jack Ryan, Debt of Honor
[That is one thing that sets us apart. Or, at least, used to. I hope we can recover our culture to the point of being able to retain the identity that has made us who we are to this point so far.]

Quote of the Day: 1 July 2025 #QotD

“When a government becomes unjust, honor is often found among the lawless.” -Moira, Seeds of Rebellion
[A good reminder that legality and morality are only tangentially related, not the same thing.]

Quote of the Day: 30 June 2025 #QotD

“Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can’t be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.” -Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
[An important lesson that you ought to convey to your children. I hope I am doing enough to help my kids understand this.]

Quote of the Day: 29 June 2025 #QotD

“And what if you’re different from people around you? That doesn’t make you a misfit—it makes you a needed part of the body of Christ. All are needed in the body of Christ. The ears perceive things that the eyes never could. The feet do things that the hands would be ineffective at.

“That doesn’t mean your job is to change everyone to be like yourself. But it does mean that you have something important to contribute—and that you have something important to learn!” -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Quote of the Day: 28 June 2025 #QotD

“Hurts don’t stop, but they fade into shadows of what they were. That’s sad. That something so vital, something that bit you so deep, can be eroded by time into a story that almost seems like it happened to someone else.” -Master Yute, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn
[Healing is a real thing. It makes a big difference, and only comes with time, though the amount of healing that occurs is variable and somewhat dependent upon our own choices.]

Quote of the Day: 27 June 2025 #QotD

“We tend to use the word story casually, as if stories and narratives were ephemeral decorations for some unchanging underlying reality. The deeper neurological truth is that stories do not cloak reality but create it, triggering cascades of perception and motivation.” -Daniel Coyle
[Story is the software our minds run on.]

Quote of the Day: 26 June 2025 #QotD

“If we are poor learners, our teaching will be ineffective.” -Yusuf al-Falah, The Anatomy of Peace
[It's hard to effectively teach if you aren't engaged in the process of learning on a continual basis. Even if all you're learning is about how to more effectively teach.]

Quote of the Day: 25 June 2025 #QotD

“Affirmative therapy compels therapists to endorse a falsehood: not that a teenage girl feels more comfortable presenting as a boy—but that she actually is a boy.” -Abigail Shrier
[Please let us be done with affirmative treatment of supposed transgender individuals. There are two sexes. Your body is either geared to produce large or small gametes (whether you do or not is another matter) which determines your sex. There are more or less masculine or feminine expressions of that sex, but you cannot escape being one or the other.]

Quote of the Day: 24 June 2025 #QotD

“But the reward for lots of work seemed to be lots more. If you dug the biggest hole, they just gave you a bigger shovel.” -Tiffany Aching (thought), The Shepherd’s Crown
[It sure seems that way much of the time.]

Quote of the Day: 23 June 2025 #QotD

“Indeed, thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability, not an asset.” -Jim Collins
[This is especially true as we enter an age of LLM use and reliance on what it produces rather than applying critical thinking to evaluate the potential truth of things.]

Quote of the Day: 22 June 2025 #QotD

“Our preparation to meet Jesus Christ accelerates when we stop asking what God will permit and start asking what God would prefer.” -Steven D. Shumway

Quote of the Day: 21 June 2025 #QotD

“Okay, maybe I’d been a little ratty, but there’s something about rotting corpses leaping at my face that puts me a bit on edge.” -Lucy Carlyle, The Whispering Skull
[I know it'd have a similar effect upon me. I also know I'm a bit jumpy about certain things. And death and decay are up there on my list.]

Quote of the Day: 20 June 2025 #QotD

“Speech, originally, was the device whereby Man learned, imperfectly, to transmit the thoughts and emotions of his mind.” -Isaac Asimov
[A very imperfect form of telepathy. Transmission is incredibly lossy and prone to errors via speech, but transmission does happen. We could certainly do worse.]

Quote of the Day: 19 June 2025 #QotD

“They can make me do it, but they can’t make me do it with dignity.” -Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes
[I mean, he ain't wrong. And I often feel that way.]

Quote of the Day: 18 June 2025 #QotD

“The goal isn’t to give your kids an easy life. It’s to give them the tools to build a great one.” -Dave Ramsey
[I hope I can do this for my children. I work hard at providing them with an excellent education, and I hope they are willing to receive it.]

Quote of the Day: 17 June 2025 #QotD

“I have that effect on people. Stay around too long, and you’ll inevitably envy those who have never met me.” -Hoid, Tress of the Emerald Sea
[I often wonder is this is what people think about me. I guess I can only hope that it isn't.]

Quote of the Day: 16 June 2025 #QotD

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one[.]” -Lord Henry Wotton, The Picture of Dorian Gray
[Don't give up a friendship in anger. Laugh at them leaving instead.]

Bonus Quote of the Day: 15 June 2025 #QotD

“Dads will give you a hard truth.

We all need hard truths sometimes.” -Tyler Todt

[Happy Father's Day!

I hope your own father was a man worthy of respect and honor, but if not, there is a man in your life who filled that role. Give that person an acknowledgement of your appreciation today. He'll remember it as long as he lives.]

Quote of the Day: 15 June 2025 #QotD

“The Savior knew pretenders would try to deceive the very elect and that many disciples would be duped. We should neither believe those who falsely claim divine sanction nor venture into metaphorical deserts or secret chambers to be taught by counterfeits.” -Dale G. Renlund

Quote of the Day: 14 Junee 2025 #QotD

“Revolutions seldom cure the evil against which they are directed; they always beget a hundred others.” -C. S. Lewis
[Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.]

Quote of the Day: 13 June 2025 #QotD

“To limit yourself to only what you know or think is possible can greatly reduce your creativity.” -Sophia, The Power of TED
[Especially since there is a whole class of things that are possible that you simply don't know are possible yet.]

Quote of the Day: 12 June 2025 #QotD

“People are never more sincere than when they assume their own moral superiority.” -Thomas Sowell
[Of course, no one wants to think they might be wrong. And about moral issues it is even more pronounced.]

Quote of the Day: 11 June 2025 #QotD

“Wrestling with truth, as the story of Jacob warns us, is a time-consuming process that marks us forever.” -Susan Wise Bauer
[The effort is worth the result. At least, it is for those of us that value truth and honor.]

Quote of the Day: 10 June 2025 #QotD

“I love other people.

“I just don’t like them.” -Rat, Pearls Before Swine

[I think so, too. Sometimes. There are people I do love, though.]

Quote of the Day: 9 June 2025 #QotD

“We knew quite well that nothing is necessary to the country except that the men should be men and the women women.” -G. K. Chesterton
[Something we used to all know, and now there are a contingent who are very confused about this.]

Quote of the Day: 8 June 2025 #QotD

“Life is a most precious part of our Father’s perfect plan, and by His decree we cherish and preserve life; and we choose the continuation of life once conceived. We also treasure the gift of choice, of moral agency—helping to strengthen righteous choices approved by God that bring eternal happiness.” -Neil L. Andersen

Quote of the Day: 7 June 2025 #QotD

“You can’t go around making people’s choices for them. Not if you love them.” -Harry Dresden, Peace Talks
[It's hard to respect them that way sometimes, though. I love them and I want the best for them, and if they'd just choose to do things the way that I see them I think they could be so much happier in the long run. It doesn't actually work that way though.]

Quote of the Day: 6 June 2025 #QotD

“I have lived through too many winters in the mountains, seen too many men willing to fight to the death over a spilled cup of wine, to think dying for a cause makes that cause just.” -Helen, Queen of Eddis, Return of the Thief
[There are, however, causes that are worth dying for. But to mistake a cause someone has died for as one that is worthy of dying for is to mistake the effect for the cause.] 

Quote of the Day: 5 June 2025 #QotD

“On most civilized worlds science was a process involving observable data and testable hypotheses, not a religion based on feeling superior toward anyone with differing political beliefs.” -Tom Stranger (thought), A Murder of Manatees
[Imagine that. A process of discerning truth and not a religion? How could such a thing be?]

Quote of the Day: 4 June 2025 #QotD

“Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.” -Kingsley Shacklebolt, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
[Some may interpret this as a political statement, but, in actuality, it is a moral statement.]

Quote of the Day: 3 June 2025 #QotD

“Control the communications of a country and you control the country.” -Andrew Nivens, The Puppet Masters
[If people are only allowed certain information and can only transmit information that is approved then those people will not be able to formulate certain thoughts.]

Quote of the Day: 2 June 2025 #QotD

“It was a magic word, trust. It meant that you had an obligation to the people who gave it to you. It meant that they believed what you said about yourself, and that you had to prove that it was real, not merely to them, but to yourself as well.”-George Winston (thought), Debt of Honor
[Just remember that it can be destroyed in a moment. A hugely important, and yet terribly fragile concept.]

Quote of the Day: 1 June 2025 #QotD

“We will, on the Day of Judgment, stand before the Savior, face to face. It will be a time of great joy for those, in this life, who have drawn close to Him in His service and can eagerly anticipate to hear His words: ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’” -Henry B. Eyring

Quote of the Day: 31 May 2025 #QotD

“When a decision matters, we have to stare at the truth unflinchingly. Only then can we find peace in our choices.” -Ferrin, Chasing the Prophecy
[Truth matters. And we need to be willing to speak the truth regardless of the situation in which we find ourselves.]

Quote of the Day: 30 May 2025 #QotD

“I like to see an angry Englishman. They are very amusing. The more emotional they feel the less command they have of language.” -Hercule Poirot, Murder on the Orient Express
[I think this happens to more than Englishmen, but what can you expect from a Belgian?]

Quote of the Day: 29 May 2025 #QotD

“The planet has survived everything, in its time. It will certainly survive us.” -Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
[We may or may not survive what we do to it, but it would be infeasible for us to do something that would actually destroy the planet.]

Quote of the Day: 28 May 2025 #QotD

“None of us really know what we’re here for or what we’re supposed to be doing. So, we shout out, hoping someone will hear, hoping someone will see us and reveal the great secret.” -Master Yute, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn
[A feeling about as universal as there ever was. So, reach out in kindness to the people around you, and extend them some grace. You'll feel the benefit even if you don't have the sentiment returned.]

Quote of the Day: 27 May 2025 #QotD

“The real courage is seeing the truth and speaking the truth to each other.” -Dave Cooper as quoted by Daniel Coyle
[The truth doesn't matter if we aren't willing to speak it. Unless the truth comes out in the open, the lies will remain to those who know no better.]

Quote of the Day: 26 May 2025 #QotD

“Bruises heal more quickly than emotional scars do.” -Avi Rozen, The Anatomy of Peace
[It's somewhat implied by calling them scars, but I can't find fault with the statement.]

Quote of the Day: 25 May 2025 #QotD

“As we focus our lives on Jesus Christ, we will find our way home, enduring to the end and rejoicing to the end.” -Sergio R. Vargas

Quote of the Day: 24 May 2025 #QotD

“We need to remember.” -Tiffany Aching, The Shepherd’s Crown
[Absolutely. There are very few things I will commit to as strongly as our need to remember, both as individuals and as a society. Without a memory we are left bereft of any guiding influence.]