“I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.”
Roberto Rossellini, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail July 7, 2004
“Nobody really believes in anything anymore, and everyone spends his life in frenzied work and frenzied play so as not to face the fact, not to look into the abyss.”
Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind (discussing Nietzsche’s views)
“These phrases [shouted in English while traveling] will take care of your basic needs abroad, and the fact that you have taken the time to learn to pronounce them loudly and clearly will leave a lasting impression on your foreign hosts.”
Dave Barry Dave Barry’s Bad Habits
“‘The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.”
G.K. Chesterton, “Sir Walter Scott,” in Twelve Types, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #4 (1-2/05)
“Human nature, Thucydides argued, is constant and hence predictable.”
R.M. Ogilvie in the Introduction to Livy The Early History of Rome, adding that Livy used that insight as "the framework of his history."
"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?"
Maurice Freehill, quoted on www.hound-dog-media.com
“the remarkable way [Stanley] Hauerwas makes friends by arguing with people.”
Stephen H. Webb reviewing a Festschrift in Hauerwas' honor in First Things #160 (February 2006)
“Nearly all pessimism is insincere.”
G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 #3 (Dec. 2000)