“I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself."
G. K. Chesterton, quoted on Thinkexist.com
“Few Christian thinkers have so well understood [as Luther] the abyss of despair that is the alternative to the utterly gratuitous love of God in Christ.”
Richard John Neuhaus in First Things January 2004
Employee: “Sorry about missing that meeting, sir. You must think I’m a complete idiot.”
Boss: “No, of course I don’t. You’re much too lazy to complete anything.”
"Real Life Adventures" cartoon in Montreal Gazette July 9, 2002
“Only miracle is plain; it is the ordinary that groans with the unutterable weight of glory.”
Robert Farrar Capon The Supper of the Lamb
"Men do learn from their mistakes; they learn how to make new ones.”
Gordon Martel The Month That Changed the World: July 1914 (quoted in a review by Gary Sheffield quoted in a blog post by Mark Collins; Martel’s specific reference is that Neville Chamberlain went to Munich to seek peace with Hitler in 1938 because he was so terrified of sleepwalking into war as in the summer of 1914)
“Only God can fix prices”
“a hadith attributed to the Prophet” according to Bernard Lewis The Middle East: 2000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day (although he notes that it was frequently disregarded in practice with bad results)
“your father, who was as sensible as he was wise – and the two things do not always go together…”
Jethro (to Chebron) in G.A. Henty Cat of Bubastes
“On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who, at the dawn of victory, sat down to rest and, resting, died.”
An unidentified poet, cited in Lewis K. Uhler Setting Limits: Constitutional Control of Government