“‘I’m not saying there is no God. I’m just not religious.’ How curious that the Lord of the Universe might exist, yet not be important enough to think about.”

J. Budziszewski “Underground Thomist” email “Reading an Empty Book” March 24, 2019

“He consistently achieves the standards he sets for himself.”

Another double-meaning letter-of-recommendation line floating around on the Internet - I don't know the origin.

“But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?”

Anne in Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Of the things that frighten us, the fear of being left out of the flow of human interaction is certainly one of the worst… In many preliterate cultures solitude is thought to be so intolerable that a person makes a great effort never to be alone; only witches and shamans feel comfortable spending time by themselves…. The Latin locution for ‘being alive’ was inter hominem esse, which literally meant ‘to be among men’; whereas ‘to be dead’ was inter hominem esse desinere, or ‘to cease to be among men.’”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“Vilfredo Pareto… developed a logarithmic pattern that demonstrated that, typically, only 20 per cent of people controlled 80 per cent of a country’s wealth. Later, American economist Max Lorenz observed that Pareto’s principle, often called the 80/20 rule, could be applied broadly to other areas, such as productivity (20 per cent of employees do 80 per cent of the work) and machinery management (20 per cent of machines are responsible for 80 per cent of breakdowns).”

Marnie Ko in Western Standard September 27, 2004

“I laid her life out on her desk like a losing hand of solitaire…”

The narrator in Spider Robinson Time Travelers Strictly Cash (he's going through a woman's personal documents)

“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”

Blaise Pascal quoted on https://www.hound-dog-media.com

“To prevent a red herring from being pulled across the trail...”

Paul Craig Roberts Alienation and the Soviet Economy: The Collapse of the Socialist Era