Quotes

I sometimes find quotes I believe will help in my ministry or teaching. If it’s worth the time for me to post it, it’s worth your time to read it.

Like Satan, every sin we commit begins with the proud assumption that we are above the rules ordained by God; of all creation, we alone believe the rules do not apply to us. — John Alexander

We cannot rely on temporal power to accomplish spiritual renewal. For too many years, American believers have been deluded into thinking that political power will lead to a godly nation. — John Alexander

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. — Dante Alighieri

Consider your origin; you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge. — Dante Alighieri

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. — Poul Anderson

It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills. — Saint Thomas Aquinas

Beware of the person of one book. — Saint Thomas Aquinas

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever. — Saint Thomas Aquinas

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. — Aristotle, Politics

In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side, that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. — Saint Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, i.41, quoted in Francis Collins, The Language of God

Blessed is he who devotes his life to great and noble ends, and who forms his well-considered plans with deliberate wisdom. — Saint Augustine

Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee. — Saint Augustine, Confessions, I.i.

When the frontier between God and man, the last inexorable barrier and obstacle, is not closed, the barrier between what is normal and what is perverse is opened. — Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, i.26-31.

Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him. — John Barrymore’s dying words

If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea. — David Belasco

Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness. — Otto von Bismark

The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they’ll sleep at night. — Otto von Bismark

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood. — Otto von Bismark

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. — Otto von Bismark

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree on. — Napoleon Bonaparte, “Maxims”

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The consciousness of being borne up by a spiritual tradition that goes back for centuries gives one a feeling of confidence and security in the face of all passing strains and stresses. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God is not free from human beings but for them. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If you board the wrong train, it it no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and which fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence, then we cannot help regarding the cross as an ordinary everyday calamity, as one of the trials and tribulations of life. We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering . — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One faces the future with one’s past. — Pearl Buck

Allow me to inquire how man can control his own affairs when he is not only incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term such as, say, a thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow? — Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves. — George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824)

The Lord has not redeemed you so you might enjoy pleasures and luxuries or so that you might abandon yourself to ease and indolence, but rather so you should be prepared to endure all sorts of evils. — John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah, XLIII.ii

In nothing do men resemble God more than in doing good.  — John Calvin, Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke – Volume 1, Matthew 5:45

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do. — Dale Carnegie

We need some remedial training on how to live as subjects in a kingdom. We may be justified in rejecting the divine right of kings to rule but we cannot be justified if we reject the rule of our divine king. — Joe Carter

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. — G.K. Chesterton

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. — G.K. Chesterton

The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog. — G. K. Chesterton, cited by the American Chesterton Society as coming from a broadcast talk 6-11-35

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last. — Sir Winston Churchill

Manifest destiny was on the march, and it was unfortunate that Mexico stood in the path. — Sir Winston Churchill on the Mexican War

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. — Sir Winston Churchill

A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril. — Sir Winston Churchill

We have won the war! — Sir Winston Churchill, upon hearing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy. — Sir Winston Churchill

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. — Sir Winston Churchill

All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes. — Winston Churchill

Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is — the strong horse that pulls the whole cart. — Winston Churchill

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms, and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night. And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. — Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit…. — Carl von Clausewitz

To strive to make humanity better and happier by uniting the religions is one thing. To implore with burning hearts the union of all men in love of the same God is another. And the first is perhaps the subtlest temptation the devil has devised to bring the second to ruin. — J.A. Cuttat, Begegnung der Religionen, quoted by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “Interreligious Dioalogue and Jewish-Christian Relations,” 1998

History can’t be left to fend for itself. For when it comes to history and beliefs and values, we turn our future on the lathe of the past. — Max DePree, Leadership Jazz

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. — Walt Disney

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. — Albert Einstein

The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them. — Albert Einstein

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. — Jim Elliott

I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: “That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.” — Galileo Galilei, quoting Cardinal Baronius (1598) in a letter to Christina of Tuscany

And yet it moves. — supposedly muttered by Galileo after his forced recantation of the heliocentric theory

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. — Gandhi

The common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice. — José Ortega y Gasset

The mass-man would never have accepted authority external to himself had not his surroundings violently forced him to do so. As to-day, his surroundings do not so force him, the everlasting mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to other authority and feels himself lord of his own existence. On the contrary the select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose service he freely accepts.… Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life. — José Ortega y Gasset

Doubtless the most radical division of humanity that can be made is that between two classes of creatures: those who demand much of themselves and assume a burden of tasks and difficulties, and those who require nothing special of themselves, but rather for whom to live is to be in every instant only what they already are. — José Ortega y Gasset

A curse on him who begins in gentleness. He shall finish in insipidity and cowardice, and shall never step foot in the great liberating current of Christianity. — Andrè Trocmè, Huguenot pastor in World War II, quoted by Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath, p. 271.

Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay — and claims a halo for his dishonesty. — Robert A. Heinlein

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future. — Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius. — Robert A. Heinlein, The Puppet Masters, 1951

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze new problems, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. — Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. — Robert A. Heinlein

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. — Patrick Henry

One treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are — G. Henrichs

If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance. — John Andrew Holmes

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. — Aldous Huxley

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. — William James

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. — Dr. Robert Jastrow, the former head of Mt. Wilson Observatory in California, God and the Astronomers Second Edition

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. — Thomas Jefferson. Source: Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, Saul K. Padover, ed., 1939

Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. — St. Jerome

Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind. — Juvenal

The last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. — Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, author of Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (1895), on the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947

Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Contrasted with the total course of human history, therefore, Christianity has been but a brief time on this planet. Even in comparison with most of the religious systems existing today it is youthful. It has had, accordingly, only a relatively short period in which to spread and to make its dreams effective. Its ethical ideals are so revolutionary and, if carried out in full, would involve so drastic a reorganization of the lives of individuals and of society that it is not surprising that in the less than twenty centuries in which it has been in existence it has not won the world to complete conformity to its pattern. — Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, “Charity”

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Chapter 3: The Shocking Alternative

It takes all sorts to make a world; or a church. This may be even truer of a church. If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and Heaven will display far more variety than Hell. — C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer

[RE: Holy Communion] The command, after all, was Take eat; not Take, understand. I hope I need not be tormented by the question “What is this?” — this wafer, this sip of wine. That has a dreadful effect on me. It invites me to take “this” out of its holy context and regard it as an object among objects, indeed as part of nature. It is like taking a red coal out of the fire to examine it: it becomes a dead coal. — C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer

A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live; a society where all were seers could live even more fully. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go: to stay here is death. — C.S. Lewis, Miracles, Chapter 6: “Answers to Misgivings”

Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. — C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or to deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. — C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. — C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment. — C.S. Lewis

The scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age. — C.S. Lewis

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. — C.S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”, reprinted in God in the Dock, Part III, Chapter 4

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. — C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, “Men Without Chests,” p. 13

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. — C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, “Men Without Chests,” p. 26

Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. — Abraham Lincoln

It is the duty of a prudent minister of God to hold his ministry in honor and to see to it that it is respected by those who are in his charge. Moreoever, it is the duty of a faithful minister not to exceed his powers and not to abuse his office in pride, but, rather, to administer it for the benefit of his subjects. — Martin Luther, Commentary on the Romans, I.i.

Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry —- Martin Luther

Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results. — Niccolo Machiavelli

In studying nature we have not to inquire how God the Creator may, as He freely wills, use His creatures to work miracles and thereby show forth His power; we have rather to inquire what Nature with its immanent causes can naturally bring to pass. — Albertus Magnus, “De vegetabilibus et plantis”

To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail. — Abraham Maslow

Stupidity is sufficient unto itself. Wisdom can never learn enough. — Mechtild of Madgeburg

There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. — Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

Those who have the will and, especially the moral, intellectual, and material means to force their will upon others take the lead over the others and command them. — Giovanni Mosca

The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men’s curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. — Sir Isaac Newton, Observations Upon The Apocalypse Of St. John (published posthumously 1733)

If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child’s faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.  — Flannery O’Connor

This is the central Christian mystery. Life has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for. — Flannery O’Connor

Those who believe the Author of Nature to be also the Author of Scripture must expect to find in Scripture the same sorts of difficulties that they find in Nature. — Origen

He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. — George Orwell, 1984, 1947.

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance, because He shows us both God and our own wretchedness. — Blaise Pascal, Pensees

I’d rather have a German division in front of me than a French division behind me. — General George Patton

Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed. — Irene Peter

The mind is a flame to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. — Plutarch

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. — Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”

A smart soldier wants to know the causes of wars. Also how to end them. After all, war is the normal state of affairs, isn’t it? Peace is the name of the ideal we deduce from the fact that there have been interludes between wars. — Jerry Pournelle

If something looks implausible, it probably is. Evolution writ large is the belief that a cloud of hydrogen will spontaneously invent extreme-ultraviolet lithography, perform Swan Lake, and write all the books in the British Museum. — Fred Reed

Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can’t it get you out? — Will Rogers

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. — Theodore Roethke

Ironically, members on both sides of the debate do agree about one thing: big bang cosmology puts their position in jeopardy. The big bang poses a problem for young-earth creationists because it makes the universe billions of years old rather than thousands. Such an assertion undercuts their system at its foundation. Big bang cosmology also presents a problem for atheistic scientists because it points directly to the existence of a transcendent Creator — a fact they dare not concede. — Hugh Ross, (BSc Physics, University of British Columbia; Ph.D. Astronomy, University of Toronto), discussing the Big Bang

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought. — Dennis Roth

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. — Bertrand Russell

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it’s still a foolish thing. — Bertrand Russell

To view current events as a historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy — R.A. Salvatore, The Orc King

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana, “Life of Reason”

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. — George Santayana

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. — George Barnard Shaw

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. — George Barnard Shaw

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then you clearly don’t understand the situation. — Seen on slashdot.org

No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending. — Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

[N]either in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. — Socrates, quoted in Plato’s Apology

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for. — Socrates

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent. — Socrates

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher. — Socrates

Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers. — Socrates

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. — From the movie “The Song of Bernadette”

History shows that there are no invincible armies. — Joseph Stalin

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas? — Joseph Stalin

The only real power comes out of a long rifle. — Joseph Stalin

Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed. — Joseph Stalin

Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. — Bram Stoker, Dracula

He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish. — Sun Tzu (Sunzi), The Art of War

Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. — Paul Tillich, German theologian

It’s the job that’s never started takes longest to finish. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation. — J.R.R. Tolkien

“Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. — Mark Twain

It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. — Mark Twain

The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going. — Unknown

The purpose of political correction is to delegitimate opposition; to make the most basic facts of life undiscussable, and thereby eliminate debate. It is a device for seizing power. — David Warren, “The Arrogance of Rewriting the Rules”

The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind. — E.B. White

How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in? — Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

There is knowledge of God and the spiritual nature of man, as well as other types of reality…, that are not reducible to the world dealt with by the so-called “natural” sciences. The idea that knowledge — and, of course, reality — is limited to that world is the single most destructive idea on the stage of life today. — Dallas Willard, USC

One of the reasons we do history, in fact, is because it acts as a brake, a control, on our otherwise unbridled enthusiasm for our own ideas. — N.T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, p. 54