One-half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.

No law reaches it, but all right- minded people observe it.

The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.

Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either. -Golda Meir.

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.

Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.

Habits are to the soul what the veins and arteries are to the blood, the courses in which it moves.

The trouble is small, the fun is great.

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 We must frankly face the fact that there is in this teaching a revolutionary element which could be dangerously subversive of our existing ways of thought. Let us admit that it is part of the fallen human nature of ecclesiastics, no less than of others in responsible positions, to desire always criteria of judgement which can be used without making too heavy demands upon the delicate faculty of spiritual discernment, clear-cut rules by which we may hope to be saved from making mistakes -- or rather, from being obviously and personally responsible for the mistakes. We are uncomfortable without definite principles by which we may guide our steps. We fear uncharted country, and the fanatics of all kinds who, upon the alleged authority of the Holy Spirit, summon us with strident cries in all directions simultaneously. Only those who have never borne the heavy burden of pastoral responsibility will mock at the cautious spirit of the ecclesiastic.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; When health is lost, something is lost; When character is lost, all is lost!

Music is a higher revelation than philosophy.

Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 Few have defined what free will is, although it repeatedly occurs in the writings of all. Origen seems to have put forward a definition generally agreed upon among ecclesiastical writers when he said that it is a faculty of the reason to distinguish between good and evil, a faculty of the will to choose one or the other. Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.

I have all the money I'll ever need - if I die by 4 today.

The Lion and the Mouse A LION was awakened from sleep by a Mouse running over his face. Rising up angrily, he caught him and was about to kill him, when the Mouse piteously entreated, saying: If you would only spare my life, I would be sure to repay your kindness. The Lion laughed and let him go. It happened shortly after this that the Lion was caught by some hunters, who bound him by st ropes to the ground. The Mouse, recognizing his roar, came gnawed the rope with his teeth, and set him free, exclaim You ridiculed the idea of my ever being able to help you, expecting to receive from me any repayment of your favor, I now you know that it is possible for even a Mouse to con benefits on a Lion.

There are no grotesques in nature; not anything framed to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary spaces.

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water drinkers.

The Old Woman and the Physician An old woman having lost the use of her eyes, called in a Physician to heal them, and made this bargain with him in the presence of witnesses: that if he should cure her blindness, he should receive from her a sum of money; but if her infirmity remained, she should give him nothing. This agreement being made, the Physician, time after time, applied his salve to her eyes, and on every visit took something away, stealing all her property little by little. And when he had got all she had, he healed her and demanded the promised payment. The Old Woman, when she recovered her sight and saw none of her goods in her house, would give him nothing. The Physician insisted on his claim, and. as she still refused, summoned her before the Judge. The Old Woman, standing up in the Court, argued: This man here speaks the truth in what he says; for I did promise to give him a sum of money if I should recover my sight: but if I continued blind, I was to give him nothing. Now he declares that I am healed. I on the contrary affirm that I am still blind; for when I lost the use of my eyes, I saw in my house various chattels and valuable goods: but now, though he swears I am cured of my blindness, I am not able to see a single thing in it.

Men have, for the most part, done with lamenting their lost faith. Sentimental tears over the happy, simple Christendom of their fathers are a thing of the past. They are proclaiming now their contempt for Christ's character, and their disgust at the very name of love. Scorn and hatred, difference and division, must be more than ever our lot, if we would be the followers of Christ in these days. Conventional religion and polite unbelief are gone forever.

The sublime and ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step below the sublime makes the ridiculous and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.