“What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth…”
John Keats, quoted in I.A. Richards Principles of Literary Criticism
“A grandfather and grandson who intended to fly to Australia instead found themselves in Nova Scotia... The elder Mr. [Joannes ] Rutten, who speaks German, Dutch and some English, said they didn’t know there was another Sydney.”
National Post August 11, 2009 (OK, it’s not exactly a zinger... until you add “Or such things as maps.”)
“I think we all have a need to know what we do not need to know.”
William Safire, quoted in Federalist Patriot No. 04-38 22 September 2004 (from Federalist.com)
“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