“What I have applied to language, is still more justly applicable to sentiments and manners. The passions, the sources from which these must spring in all their modifications, are generally the same in all ranks and conditions, all countries and ages; and it follows, as a matter of course, that the opinions, habits of thinking, and actions, however influenced by the peculiar state of society, must still, upon the whole, bear a strong resemblance to each other.”

Dedicatory Epistle to Sir Walter Scott Ivanhoe

“a... notion which Hayek has called the ‘synoptic delusion’.... is that a single person can hold in his mind all the facts relevant to some social problem.”

David G. Green Reinventing Civil Society: The Rediscovery of Welfare Without Politics

“The aim of argument is differing in order to agree; the failure of argument is when you agree to differ.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News April 1, 1911, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #2 (Oct.-Nov. 2004)

“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."