“[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.” George Washington in a letter to his nephew George Steptoe Washington, 5 December 1790, quoted by The Patriot Post “Founder’s Quote Daily” Dec. 21, 2005

“Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.” Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, quoted in The Patriot Post “Founder’s Quote Daily” February 6 2009

“In the mystery of the end, of course, man hurts not nor destroys in all the holy mountain, and lion lies down with lamb. But before the end, it cannot be, unless the lion becomes a docile bag of air that is no lion at all – a king of beasts with nothing fit for general resurrection but an empty skin: a mangy, risen rug unfit to grace the Supper of the Lamb. There is no way around the killing here that is not less than human in the end; man is what he is: hunter, butcher, carnivore; save him without that and you save nothing – manskins stuffed with sacred sawdust reach no New Jerusalem; the trip is not worth the baggage left behind. Raise him indeed, but raise him in the time of resurrection – and raise him Man – with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature…. bring him home himself: with hands till pierced by grim exchanges, glorious scars; and with a heart still ready for astonishment at Lion and Lamb In their unimaginable concourse.” Robert Farrar Capon The Supper of the Lamb

“the agenda is as clear as mushroom soup” Rami Khouri in Globe and Mail November 22 2007

After being shipwrecked, Robinson “Crusoe might be driven to make his own trousers on the island. But he was not driven to make his own legs on the island… You may regard the universe as a wreck; but at least you have saved something from the wreck.” G.K. Chesterton in “The Idea of Separation” quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 10 #5 (March 2007)