"If there were anywhere on earth a resting place other than God, we may be very sure that the human soul in its long history would have found it before this."

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, quoted in National Review June 12, 1995

"I’m suitably impressed."

From my file of hidden insults, from a friend’s neighbour
 

"If a man wants to worship the Life Force merely because it is a Force, he may very naturally worship it in the electric battery. I am tempted to say it will serve him right if he eventually worships the life force in the electric chair."

G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 5 # 3 (Dec. 2001)

"It is really a strange thing that there should not be room enough in the world for men to live, without cutting one another’s throats."

George Washington, in W.B. Allen, ed., Washington: A Collection

"I’m creative, but somehow I lack the talent to go with it."

 Lily Tomlin, Search for Signs of Intelligent Life, quoted in The New Republic Oct. 7, 1991

"The sorcerer’s apprentice gets into trouble because he knows a little magic. If he knew none, he’d have no problem; nor would he have a problem if he knew enough."

George Jonas in Ottawa Citizen Jan. 3, 2005

"When you sweep the floor, just sweep; when you eat, just eat; when you walk, just walk."

"the pilgrim-poet Basho" quoted by Robert Sibley in Ottawa Citizen Nov. 19, 2000

"All the will-worshippers, from Nietzsche to Mr. Davidson, are really quite empty of volition. They cannot will, they can hardly wish.... they always talk of will as something that expands and breaks out. But it is quite the opposite. Every act of will is an act of self-limitation.... In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else. That objection, which men of this school used to make to the act of marriage, is really an objection to every act.... Just as when you marry one woman you give up all the others, so when you take one course of action you give up all the other courses. If you become King of England, you give up the post of Beadle in Brompton. If you go to Rome, you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in Wimbledon. It is the existence of this negative or limiting side of will that makes most of the talk of the anarchic will-worshippers little better than nonsense. For instance, Mr. John Davidson tells us to have nothing to do with 'Thou shalt not'; but it is surely obvious that 'Thou shalt not' is only one of the necessary corollaries of 'I will.'"

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy