“Some surviving literary works from this period [Egypt’s First Intermediate Period 2200-2050 BC] betray blank despair; others proclaim a crass hedonism; and still others seek a basis for restoration of social order by insisting upon the necessity of personal righteousness.”
William McNeill The Rise of the West
“‘Frankly,’ I reply, ‘I wouldn’t know how to describe the difference.’”
John O’Sullivan in National Review March 25, 1996 (the specific reference was people who diet down to ugly sticks then ask “Notice any change in me?” but it offers far broader “He’s an extraordinary man” possibilities)
“A man’s judgement that whisky is bad for him is not invalidated by the fact that when the bottle is at hand he finds desire stronger than reason and succumbs…. Life, in other words, is as habit-forming as cocaine. What then? If I still held creation to be ‘a great injustice’ I should hold that this impulse to retain life aggravates the injustice.”
C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy (explicitly rejecting G.K. Chesterton's Manalive test that someone who claims to believe life is pointless will object vehemently if you offer to shoot them)
"To predict the broad developments of the future is no more of a tour de force than to divine those of the past.... If past events have left their traces, it is reasonable to imagine that those still to come have their roots."
Honoré de Balzac, quoted in Leonard Silk The Economists
“Unfortunately, Miss [Susan] Sontag’s intelligence is still greater than her talent."
Gore Vidal "in a 1967 review of Death Kit, one of her largely forgotten novels" according to Ottawa Citizen December 29, 2004
"What kind of man would live where there is no daring? I don’t believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all."
Charles Lindbergh, quoted in Patrick Moore, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist
“There are many genuinely good finite things in this world, and even unbelievers can derive much pleasure from them: human love, and music, and the stars and the sea. But ultimately, Pascal is right: these are only well-mixed drinks served aboard the Titanic.”
Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined & Explained
“If I had only a single temporal blessing to wish you, I would not hesitate a moment: May you be spared long enough to know at least one evening of old friends, dark bread, good wine, and strong cheese. If even exile be so full, what must not our fullness be?”
Robert Capon The Supper of the Lamb