"Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition. It has nothing whatever to do with belief in the proposition itself."

G.K. Chesterton in Lunacy and Letters quoted in Dale Ahlquist and Peter Floriani, Chesterton University Student Handbook

"I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it."

Dame Edith Sitwell, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe and Mail Sept. 29, 2011

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not more so."

Albert Einstein, quoted by Burton Malkiel A Random Walk Down Wall Street

"Many persons in these days wish to retain the morality which they like, after getting rid of the religion which they disbelieve. Whether they are right or wrong in disturbing the foundation, they are inconsistent in wishing to save the superstructure."

James Fitzjames Stephen in Liberty Equality Fraternity

"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