Quote of the Day: 28 February 2026 #QotD

“The real fun of living wisely is that you get to be smug about it.” -Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes
[Is anything worth doing if you can't be smug about it? I mean, really.]

Quote of the Day: 27 February 2026 #QotD

“The world of cognitive work lacks coherent ideas about how our efforts should be organized and measured.” -Cal Newport
[It is hard to know how best to organize mental effort and work when it is something that has been only relatively recently engaged in by a large portion of the population.]

Quote of the Day: 26 February 2026 #QotD

“Nightmares are a fluid terror. Once you get the briefest handle on one, it will change.” -Hoid, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
[It's been a while since I've had a true nightmare. They are supremely unpleasant. I hope not to experience one again.]

Quote of the Day: 25 February 2026 #QotD

“Nothing takes the heart out of a man more than the expectation of failure.” -FitzChivalry Farseer, Assassin’s Apprentice
[It can be really disheartening to have no hope of success. It can even cause the failure and become a self-fulfilling sentiment. So, live bravely, full of audacity. What have you got to lose?]

Quote of the Day: 24 February 2026 #QotD

“You're either a man or a woman. Your body is geared to produce large or small gametes, that's it.

“You can't change that and it's insulting to me to be forced to say something I know is not true or otherwise bend over backwards to rephrase my words so that I don't end up disturbing someone's delusion.” -Robb Allen

[Truth is truth regardless of your insistence that things are otherwise, and falsity is still untrue irrespective of your feelings.]

Quote of the Day: 23 February 2026 #QotD

“Just the getting of money—that is really the be all and end all for most rich men. Plough it back into bigger enterprises, make more money still. But why? Do they ever stop to ask themselves why? They don’t know.” -Mr. Venables, The Pale Horse
[When you've lost track of the true meaning of life, and you view money as a method of keeping score between people it's easy to see how the accumulation of wealth can become the object of your existence. It's not mine, but I do try to increase my personal wealth with the aim to improving my life and having the ability to leave a legacy for my posterity. But I could be just as happy not to accumulate as much.]

Quote of the Day: 22 February 2026 #QotD

“When I kneel in prayer, I think on how I can give God my will.” -Jeremy R. Jaggi

Quote of the Day: 21 February 2026 #QotD

“[T]here is no foretelling what may come to seem, or even to be, ‘useful’, and ‘necessity’ was always ‘the tyrant’s plea.’” -C. S. Lewis
[Expediency will always be something those in charge of implementing policy want to achieve. Rarely will it be a good idea to let them have it.]

Quote of the Day: 20 February 2026 #QotD

“At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its financial value, but for labour’s own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings.” -Booker T. Washington
[A man who knows how to work, and is willing to do so, will generally find something that he can do to contribute to society. There's good in that. You can walk with your head held high knowing you aren't a drain on the people around you.]

Quote of the Day: 19 February 2026 #QotD

“Everything fails by irrelevant standards.” -Thomas Sowell
[It is important to use the right measures as you seek to quantify things. If you end up measuring your ability to run fast when what you care about is your ability to think you'll get some very odd ideas about your abilities.]

Quote of the Day: 18 February 2026 #QotD

“They can dress me however they want; no matter what clothes I wear I’ll still be Sancho Panza.” -Sancho Panza, Don Quixote
[The clothes don't exactly make the man. They can reflect the man, or not, but the man in them is still whoever he is regardless.]

Quote of the Day: 17 February 2026 #QotD

“Apparently, you can’t patent assault.” -Rat, Pearls Before Swine
[More's the pity. Though, if you could it probably would have been by now.]

Quote of the Day: 16 February 2026 #QotD

“Both the characteristic modern parties believed in a government by the few; the only difference is whether it is the Conservative few or Progressive few.” -G. K. Chesterton
[People with principles are few and far between these days. Mostly, what we have are people who have formed teams and then just try to see that their team "wins."]

Quote of the Day: 15 February 2026 #QotD

“While our Heavenly Father consistently and lovingly reminds us that we are His children, the adversary will always try to label us by our weaknesses.” -Brik V. Eyre

Quote of the Day: 14 February 2026 #QotD

“My whole life I’d thought I’d wanted to kiss a girl. Turns out being kissed by one is infinitely better.” -Kellen, Spellslinger
[Happy Valentine's Day!

It turns out, being loved feels so much better than merely loving someone. Reciprocation is intoxicating.]

Quote of the Day: 13 February 2026 #QotD

“If we must ride intae the sunset, let it be one tae savor instead of fear.” -Al MacBharrais, Candle and Crow
[Optimism is always so much more pleasant than pessimism. But it does lead to disappointment from time to time.]

Quote of the Day: 12 February 2026 #QotD

“Can it really be that someday we will read the old Lubyanka archives? No, they will bum them. They already have.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
[Here we have an actual instance of what Orwell envisioned in 1984. Should we be at all surprised that it happens more than this?]

Quote of the Day: 11 February 2026 #QotD

“When a group comes together around something they love it changes things. It changes how they see one another. It becomes a community. Something greater than the sum of its parts.” -Harry Dresden, Battle Ground
[And it is so nice to be a part of a community. You form connections with people and that's something humans need to function as humans.]

Quote of the Day: 10 February 2026 #QotD

“Stop justifying your position to people who show no willingness to hear it. Stop trying to create understanding with those who appear determined to misunderstand. Stop chasing rational outcomes with irrational opponents.” -Sahil Bloom
[That isn't to say you don't engage. You can, but remember that you're not doing it to change your opponent's mind, but to persuade the audience.]

Quote of the Day: 9 February 2026 #QotD

“For centuries I have seen all that mankind can offer, from its noblest to its most despicable wretches. Of them, you represent the worst, most dangerous type of all. … The kind who truly believes if only he could deprive everyone else of their will, he could control the outcome of everything.” -Mother Dawn, Graveyard of Demons
[*Cough* *Cough* Communism *Cough*.]

Quote of the Day: 8 February 2026 #QotD

“A primary purpose of the Creation and of our mortal existence is to provide us the opportunity to act and become what the Lord invites us to become.” -David A. Bednar

Quote of the Day: 7 February 2026 #QotD

“[B]eing ashamed of your bad and immoral actions is good even if the shame is from universal mockery and not from a nagging conscience[.]” -@ingelramdecoucy
[Shame is not bad. And we ought to employ it more than we do.]

Quote of the Day: 6 February 2026 #QotD

“Everyone who has achieved exceptional performance has encountered terrible difficulties along the way. There are no exceptions. If you believe that doing the right kind of work can overcome the problems, then you have at least a chance of moving on to ever better performance.” -Geoff Colvin
[Setbacks and failures are a part of the human experience. There is no way to get around it. But you can put your efforts into things that will help you learn from those failures and setbacks.]

Quote of the Day: 5 February 2026 #QotD

“A man can face known danger. But the unknown frightens him.” -Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
[Unknowns are a frightening prospect. It's hard to calibrate your risk assessment when you don't know, and can't know, what the risks are.]

Quote of the Day: 4 February 2026 #QotD

“To assert that trans women (biological males) should not be competing in athletic competitions with biological females does not make you a transphobe.” -Gad Saad
[Never mind what the chattering classes say. They make a lot of noise, but don't make any sense. Stand for truth and sanity in an uncertain world.]

Quote of the Day: 3 February 2026 #QotD

“When you aren't happy at home, your eyes will lie to you.” -@DrInsensitive
[It's easy to go looking for something ready-made to fulfill what you think is missing in your life rather than to work to fix what has gone wrong.]

Quote of the Day: 2 February 2026 #QotD

“One of the reasons Christianity focuses so heavily on forgiveness is the endless cycles of tit-for-tat violence destroys civilizations.” -@memeticsisyphus
[The possibility of redemption has to be available. Otherwise, as soon as one transgresses he may as well become a villain, as there is no other possibility for active involvement in events.]

Quote of the Day: 1 February 2026 #QotD

“Our Heavenly Father desires more than mechanical acts of obedience and service from His children. He wants us to do those things with real intent because we love Him with all our hearts. He wants us to desire to become like Him.” -Ronald M. Barcellos