“the acknowledged Elizabethan habit of viewing history as a series of object lessons for present conduct.”
Sylvan Barnet’s “Overview” in the 1986 Signet Classic edition of William Shakespeare Julius Caesar
“The river of human nonsense flows on forever.”
G.K. Chesterton, “A Sermon on Inns,” in The Flying Inn, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 7 #1 (September 2003)
“Laugh, and the world laughs with you;/ Weep, and you weep alone;/ For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,/ But has trouble enough of its own…. There is room in the halls of pleasure/ For a large and lordly train,/ But one by one we must all file on/ Through the narrow aisles of pain.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “Solitude,” in William Bennett The Book of Virtues [beginning and end of the poem]
Regarding a Bible Ukrainian Christians had secretly copied by hand under Communism, “Would similar risks have been taken and similar loving care have been expended on copying out, say, Magna Carta if for some reason it had become unobtainable? Or the American Declaration of Independence? Or the Communist Manifesto? Or Lady Chatterley’s Lover? Or The Thoughts of Chairman Mao? Or, descending to what Dr Johnson called unresisting imbecility – the recently acclaimed Helsinki Declaration?”
Malcolm Muggeridge in a 1976 speech in Ian Hunter, ed., The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge
“‘What is it that I don’t know?’ Sir Humphrey feigned ignorance. ‘Minister,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what you don’t know. It could be almost anything.’”
A Jim Hacker diary entry in Yes Minister Vol. I
“How do you do, Miss West?"
Mae West: "How do you do what?”
Harmik Vaishnav, Dictionary of Humorous Quotations
In my latest National Post column I object to the hypocrisy of press releases in which staff falsely claim their politician boss is deeply engaged with some day of this or festival of that whose details they had to Google after an automated reminder to pander over it popped up..
“Awe-full life”
Recommended, especially in old age, by Paul Pearsall in The Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need: Repress your anger, think negatively, be a good blamer, & throttle your inner child.