Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Let us not say, every man is the architect of his own fortune, but let us say, every man is the architect of his own character.

Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 Slowly, all through the universe, that temple of God is being built. Wherever, in any world, a soul, by free-willed obedience, catches the fire of God's likeness, it is set into the growing walls, a living stone. When, in your hard fight, in your tiresome drudgery, or in your terrible temptation, you catch the purpose of your being and give yourself to God, and so give Him the chance to give Himself to you, your life -- a living stone -- is taken up and set into that growing wall. Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely ways, there God is hewing out the pillars for His temple. Oh, if the stone can only have some vision of the temple of which it is to be a part forever, what patience must fill it as it feels the blows of the hammer, and knows that success for it is simply to let itself be wrought into what shape the Master wills.

O how grandly cometh Even, Sitting on the mountain summit, Purple-vestured, grave, and silent, Watching o'er the dewy valleys, Like a good king near his end.

As Love and I late harbour'd in one inn, With proverbs thus each other entertain; "In love there is no lack," thus I begin; "Fair words make fools," replieth he again; "Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I; "As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow"; "Fortune assists the boldest," I reply; "A hasty man," quote he, "ne'er wanted woe"; "Labour is light where love," quote I, "doth pay"; "Light burden's heavy, if far borne"; Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the by away"; "Y'have spun a fair thread," he replies in scorn. And having thus awhile each other thwarted Fools as we met, so fools again we parted.

Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

I knew a very wise man that believed that . . . if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation. - Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun ,

To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy -- and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.

We should be lenient in our judgment, because often the mistakes of others would have been ours had we had the opportunity to make them.

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

I only feel, but want the power to paint.

Pizza is a lot like sex. When it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good.

On a March clothesline .. transparent icicles in a row in the bright sun they drip and glow Marks of exclamation !!!!!!!!!! a sentence of joyful exclamation !!!!!!!!

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.

A life devoted unto God, looking wholly unto Him in all our actions, and doing all things suitably to His glory, is so far from being dull and uncomfortable, that it creates new comforts in everything that we do.

Julius Caesar divorced his wife Pompeia, but declared at the trial that he knew nothing of what was alleged against her and Clodius. When asked why, in that case, he had divorced her, he replied: "Because I would have the chastity of my wife clear even of suspicion."

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.

Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them, women will forgive them anything, even their gigantic intellects.

Propaganda replaces moral philosophy.