"The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell."
Zora Hurston, quoted in Elie Nasrallah Hostage to History
"All purposeful human action is self-interested, in the crucial sense that it aims at goals accepted by the individual, using means evaluated by the individual. Greed or selfishness, by contrast, is a matter of claiming for the self more than is due."
Paul Heyne "The Concept of Economic Justice in Religious Discussion"
"No matter how bad things are, you have to remember, either you get killed or you don’t. The rest is just psychology."
His father on living through the Blitz, quoted by David Warren in Ottawa Citizen October 21, 2001
"Lightheartedness is a treasure in a world too full of sorrows." Tor Kelsey in Dick Francis The Edge, quoted in "Gilbert’s Top Dozen Pearls of Detective Wisdom" in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #3
"Thus we return again to Dostoyevsky’s terrifying little truism: If there is no God, everything is permissible.... The atheist argues: 'If there were a God, how could there be injustice?' To which Pascal replies: 'If there is injustice, there must be true justice for it to be relative to and a defect of; and this true justice is not found on Earth or in man, therefore it must exist in Heaven and God.' Either there or nowhere; and if nowhere, then 'everything is permissible.' But not everything is permissible. Therefore there must be a God." Peter Kreeft Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined & Explained
"The best I can give you is a definite maybe." Sam Goldwyn, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 #3 (Dec. 2000)
"Thank heaven, I am bringing to at least one human being the news that is at bottom the only good news to any son of Adam. Your life has not been useless." Adam Wayne to Turnbull, the toy-shop keeper, in G.K. Chesterton The Napoleon of Notting Hill
"Leadership is the practical application of character" Colonel R. Meinertzhagen, quoted by Cliff Chadderton Excuse Us! Herr Schicklgruber