"Some people have such open minds that their brains fall out."
Flannery O'Connor (according to various sources)
"the Furies of conscience do not wait upon our assumptions. One who admits the Furies but denies the God who appointed them – who supposes that there can be a law without a lawgiver – must suppose that forgiveness is both necessary and impossible. That which is not personal cannot forgive; morality 'by itself' has a heart of rock."
J. Budziszewski in First Things June/July 2002
"Spoon me with a gag"
OK, I did say this, on reading a January 2007 news story about a woman in Sydney, Australia who laughed so hard while eating spaghetti that she swallowed a teaspoon (she was OK after medical intervention)
"Truth is not only stranger, but much more blood-curdling than fiction."
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Dec. 31 1921, quoted in “Chesterton Rewrites more of the Classic Lines” in Gilbert Magazine July-August 20077-8/07 p. 37
"Only through scrutiny of the past can society descry the limitations of human nature.”
Russel Kirk The Conservative Mind
“in all their actions all men do in fact aim at what they think good.”
Aristotle The Politics
“If you want to succeed, it would be wise for you to choose your beliefs carefully, rather than walking around like a piece of flypaper, picking up whichever belief sticks.”
Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power
Queen Victoria: "You are a genius.” Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann: "Perhaps, Your Majesty, but before that I was a drudge."
Clifton Fadiman, ed, The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes