A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 To excuse what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life -- to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son -- how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it means to refuse God's mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says.

By union the smallest states thrive. By discord the greatest are destroyed.

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honour as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

I must claim the quoter's privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose, said Tan-Chun. If I told you how it went on, I should end up by contradicting myself!

The ascetic believed that, because he was so holy, the Devil was permitted special liberties with him, and he found in his increasing agony of effort a token of divine approval. Not along this track lies the path of moral progress. Christianity says: face the evil once for all, and disown it. Then quiet the spirit in the presence of God. Let His perfections fill the field of vision. In particular, let the concrete embodiment of the goodness of God in Christ attract and absorb the gaze of the soul. Here is the righteousness, not as a fixed and abstract ideal, but in a living human person. The righteousness of Christ is a real achievement of God's own Spirit in man.

Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.

They have come up with a perfect understanding. He won't try to run her life, and he won't try to run his, either.

The Galloping Gourmet isn't a zombie, just really really English.

A mistake is a Buddhist gift. Director Terry Gilliam to Robin Williams.

In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anybody else.

What I wish to show when I paint is the way I see things with my eyes and in my heart. -Raoul Dufy.

It is quite true that the Greek word ekklesia comes from two roots which mean literally "called out." Many preachers have made use of this fact to point out helpful spiritual implications; and yet, by New Testament times, the word carried no such denotation as "called out." It was simply the word for "assembly" or "congregation." It so happened that in the Greek city-states an assembly of the citizenry resulted from the people being called out of their city and summoned from their farms to participate in such gatherings. Even though the etymology of the word remains, its real meaning is just "assembly," and a Greek-speaking person of New Testament times would be no more inclined to understand ekklesia in its original etymological value of "called out" than we today would recognize "God be with you" in "good-by," which, as we may learn from the dictionary, was derived from the longer phrase.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire, it extinguishes the small and kindles the great.

Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Those who guilt stains it equals.

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women Rail on the Lord's anointed. -King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4.

The only reward of virtue is virtue.