“What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the d***ed fools said would happen has come to pass.”
Lord Melbourne, quoted in British Columbia Report November 18, 1996.
“It may be that a free society as we have known it carries in itself the forces of its own destruction, that once freedom has been achieved it is taken for granted and ceases to be valued, and that the free growth of ideas which is the essence of a free society will bring about the destruction of the foundations on which it depends.”
Friedrich Hayek “The Intellectuals and Socialism”
“.... and when the patient loves his illness, what pain he has to suffer when he is cured!”
Infanta, in Pierre Corneille The Cid II.5.
“In this life we get nothing save by effort.”
Theodore Roosevelt, “In Praise of the Strenuous Life,” in William Bennett The Book of Virtues
“But the spiritual life is not a democracy.”
Bishop Robert Barron in “Is Jesus the King of Your Life?” (right after praising political democracy and condemning this-world monarchy) https://youtu.be/tICxaSQFJGo?t=761
“D is a very weak-minded fellow I am afraid and, like the feather pillow, bears the marks of the last person who has sat on him.”
“Lord Haig” re “Lord Derby” in 1918, quoted by Mark Steyn in the Daily Telegraph August 1, 2004
“‘What does my life matter? I just want to be faithful, to the end, to the child I used to be.’”
Georges Bernanos (1888-1948) quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 3 #5 (March 2000)
“If it came as a surprise to Khrushchev, why wouldn’t it come as a surprise to me?”
Soviet scholar Adam Ulam when asked why he didn’t predict Khrushchev's downfall in 1964, quoted in Globe & Mail April 1, 2000