"He was a gentle, polite, elderly person with no more warmth in him than a hangman’s rope. The Agency wits said he could spit icicles in July."

Dashiell Hammett Red Harvest (the narrator re his boss at the Continental Detective Agency)

"The fact to which we have got to cling, as to a lifebelt, is that it is possible to be a normal decent person and yet be fully alive."

George Orwell, quoted by Jeffrey Hart in National Review Feb. 8, 1999

"Should a traveller give an account of men who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, and revenge; who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit, we should immediately detect the falsehood and prove him a liar with the same certitude as if he had stuffed his narration with centaurs and dragons."

David Hume in 1772, quoted by Robert Ardrey in The Territorial Imperative

"Faith is, indeed, most necessary in human affairs, as well as in religion. Without faith, no contracts could be concluded, nor could any business be transacted."

John of Salisbury in Metalogicon (1159), quoted in William L. Sachse English History in the Making

"Many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already."

Seneca the Younger, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe and Mail Dec. 10, 2004

"I find that a change of nuisances is as good as a vacation."

David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister (attributed, in reply to a question how he stayed cheerful, according to "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail July 28, 2004)

"I never, as it happens, come across a hospital or orphanage run by the Fabian Society or a Humanist leper colony."

Malcolm Muggeridge Observer (1968) in Ian Hunter, ed., The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge

"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor."

"Top 20 Internet Tag Lines" in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 #8 (July/August 2001)