History, a distillation of rumor.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

I would rather be adorned by beauty of character than jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, while character comes from within.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

When your on your death bed you'd give anything for one more tick of the clock.

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters.

Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 We may search so far, and reason so long of faith and grace, as that we may lose not only them, but even our reason too, and sooner become mad than good. Not that we are bound to believe any thing against reason, that is, to believe, we know not why. It is but a slack opinion, it is not Belief, that is not grounded upon Reason. It is true, we have not a Demonstration; not such an Evidence as that one and two are three, to prove these to be Scriptures of God; God hath not proceeded in that manner, to drive our reason into a pound, and to force it by a peremptory necessity to accept these for Scriptures, for then, here had been no exercise of our Will, and our assent, if we could not have resisted.

O Blackbird! sing me something well: While all the neighbors shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.

I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art.

Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied.

Feast of Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, 865 Only by critical questioning can I tell whether I am reading into the text, not only my own presuppositions and questions, but also those of my own generation and even those of my own church and religious tradition. Evangelicals have been too afraid of the word "criticism", when only by critical questioning can I sufficiently disengage myself from my own worldly or religious (even evangelical) tradition to ask: Is this what the Bible is really saying?

The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood.

The true art of government consists in not governing too much.

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

wisdom is not truth.

Secretly, I wanted to look like Jimi Hendrix, but I could never quite pull it off.

In politics, an absurdity is not a handicap.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

When I'm right no-one remembers, when I'm wrong no-one forgets.