“Make no small plans here.” A placard in the office of a two-time cancer survivor Tom Coburn, a doctor and former Republican Congressman and Senator who twice stepped down because he did not believe politicians should hold office indefinitely
“‘If God made everything, did He make the Devil?’ This is the kind of embarrassing question which any child can ask before breakfast, and for which no neat and handy formula is provided in the Parents’ Manuals. In much the same light-hearted manner, a cousin of my own once demanded, ‘Mother, where has yesterday gone to?’ My aunt courageously undertook to find out; but by the time she returned, primed with the opinion of an eminent Oxford philosopher, the inquirer had lost interest and, like jesting Pilate, would not stay for an answer. Late in life, however, the problem of time and the problem of evil become desperately urgent, and it is useless to tell us to run away and play and that we shall understand when we are older. The world has grown hoary, and the questions are still unanswered.” Dorothy Sayers The Mind of the Maker
“They would eat our eyeballs like grapes if they could.” Republican political consultant Kellyanne Conway of her partisan foes, quoted by Ramesh Ponnuru in National Review July 9, 2001
“history is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.” Konrad Adenauer
“The phrase ‘think for one’s self’ is a pleonasm. Unless one does it for one’s self, it isn’t thinking.” John Dewey Democracy and Education
“Men try to be kings but dream of being shepherds.” G.K. Chesterton
“Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us.” C.S. Lewis “Weight of Glory” sermon, quoted by Thomas Howard in a Q&A in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 13 No. 4 (Jan-Feb 2010)
“Within a few minutes the opposition had him on the ropes. Unfortunately the ropes were tied to a hammock.”
Paul Wells in National Post March 14 2001 [re Jean Chrétien]