“However mean or inconsiderable the act, there is something in the well doing of it, which has fellowship with the noblest forms of manly virtue...” John Ruskin in The Seven Lamps of Architecture

“If you [historians] have no more to tell us than that one barbarian succeeded another on the banks of the Oxus or Ixartes, what use are you to the public?” Voltaire

“There is no such thing as a gay book on political economy for reading in a hammock.” Stephen Leacock in Social Criticism: The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice and Other Essays

“Go not for every grief to the physician, nor for every quarrel to the lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot.” George Herbert

“He had made his wish and the wish had not only been granted, it had been stuffed down his throat.” Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

“We talk much about ‘respecting’ this or that person’s religion; but the way to respect a religion is to treat it as a religion: to ask what are its tenets and what are their consequences. But modern tolerance is dearer than intolerance. The old religious authorities, at least, defined a heresy before they condemned it, and read a book before they burned it. But we are always saying to a Mormon or a Moslem, ‘never mind about your religion, come to my arms.’ To which he naturally replies, ‘But I do mind about my religion, and I should advise you to mind your eye.’” G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News May 13, 1911, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 15 #8 (July-August 2012)

“’It is obvious that the mind is moved by incongruity.’ That’s Chesterton writing about laughter. He also said ‘laughter is directly related to the strangeness of man on this strange earth.’ Because we are strangers here, we see the incongruities and they make us laugh.” Eric Scheske in Gilbert! Vol. 7 #5 (March 2004)

“The problem [for the Devil, regarding Adam and Eve] was to rid these two of their fantasies, to convince them that the world does exist; that life is not a game but a very serious, even difficult and troublesome thing, and that notions of good and evil are ultimately only relative and impermanent.” Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, Talks With A Devil: Two tales by P.D. Ouspensky