“What is this life if, full of care,/ We have no time to stand and stare.”
“W.H. Davies (1871-1940) in Leisure”, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Social Studies in Globe & Mail November 11, 2008
“It is natural to civilised man to go back upon his past, and to be grateful for all profit he can gain from the study of his own development. So we may be certain that the claim of Greece and Rome to our eternal gratitude will never cease to be asserted, and their right to teach us still what we could have learnt nowhere else will never be successfully disputed.”
W. Warde Fowler, Rome (written November 1911)
“No real Englishman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist: he is much more likely to be sorry for his life.”
Roger Kimball’s Introduction to Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics
“Wisdom has never really proved to be much help to anyone (nobody ever said: ‘I can’t open this jar of marmalade - you do it - you’re wiser than me’) and yet as we all get older, we would like to think we are acquiring wisdom. But why? Is it really wise to be wise? When the revolution comes, isn’t it always the wise who get the chop first? Perhaps it’s more sensible to be unwise.”
Miles Kington, quoted as one of two “Apercus du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 20, 2008
"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) [the guy who also said "the pen is mightier than the sword" and started a novel "It was a dark and stormy night"]
"With God dead, there remains only history and power."
“Helen’s Exile” in Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays
"If he’s mad, I hope he’ll bite some of my other generals."
King George II responding to criticism of General James Wolfe, quoted by John Ivison in National Post June 12, 2012
"The truth is that I care more for my dog, donkey, and garden in the little English village where we live than for all the publicity in the world."
Frances Chesterton (GKC's wife), "to an American reporter during one of G.K.’s lecture tours”, quoted by Therese Warmus in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #4 (Jan.-Feb. 2005)