“As long as the same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the subject of modern deliberation.”
Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
“‘Look there, a garden!’ said my college friend,/ The Tory member’s elder son, ‘and there!/ God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off,/ And keeps our Britain, whole within herself,/ A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled--/ Some sense of duty, something of a faith,/ Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,/ Some patient force to change them when we will,/ Some civic manhood firm against the crowd--/ But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat,/ The gravest citizen seems to lose his head,/ The king is scared, the soldier will not fight,/ The little boys begin to shoot and stab,/ A kingdom topples over with a shriek/ Like an old woman, and down rolls the world/ In mock heroics stranger than our own;/ Revolts, republics, revolutions, most/ No graver than a schoolboys’ barring out;/ Too comic for the serious things they are,/ Too solemn for the comic touches in them,/ Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream/ As some of theirs--God bless the narrow seas!/ I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.’”
Alfred Lord Tennyson “The Princess: Conclusion” in Alfred Tennyson: The Major Works
“I think you’re the opposite of a paranoid. I think you go around with the insane delusion that people like you.”
Woody Allen, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail June 2, 2003 [and yes, we’re all feeling squeamish about Allen now but it’s still a good line].
“To be successful you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can’t just accept the ones you like.”
Mike Gafka, quoted by Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html
“The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort.”
C.S. Lewis “Christian Apologetics” in The Grand Miracle
“Miss Management”
A tag applied by MP Deb Grey to Minister Jane Stewart over the Human Resources Development Canada scandal , quoted by Susan Riley in Ottawa Citizen November 21, 2004
“Other people’s heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man’s true happiness.”
Schopenhauer deploring the pursuit of fame in “Wisdom of Life,” quoted in Will Durant The Story of Philosophy
“Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and marvellous deeds – some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians – may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two peoples fought with each other.”
First sentence of Herodotus The Histories