“Trends that have held up over several hundred years are not apt to reverse themselves within the next several weeks.”
John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History
“The profit motive is not a noble motive. It is not a gallant motive. It is not artistic. It is not dignified. And yet, it seems useful.”
Henry Luce, quoted in Calgary Sun Jan 25, 1990
“the beasts of the wood themselves, which have no human reason or soul and that know so much more than we.”
Lord Dunsany
“‘I’m never an optimist, but I’m always hopeful.’”
Tom Flanagan in British Columbia Report May 27, 2002 (specifically regarding the then-current Canadian political scene but I commend this attitude in almost all situations)
"There is an alliance between religion and real fun, of which the modern thinkers have never got the key.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Jan. 11, 1908, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 6 #3 (Dec. 2002)
“The inner courtyard boasted a fountain, a stretch of lawn and some comparatively unobjectionable early baroque cloisters.”
Hans Hellmut Kirst The Night of the Generals [and credit translator J. Maxwell Brownjohn for rendering that "damning with faint praise" insult so well]
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
Will Durant, quoted on www.hound-dog-media.com/2014/01/gamblers-fools-and-egotists-59-still_31.html
“history teaches, as no other subject can, the sad fact that acts have consequences.”
Robin Neillands, The Wars of the Roses