"All our doing must take place within the context of Being, with its mystery present and alive to us. Otherwise we are simply scurrying around aimlessly in the mazes of our own contrivance."

William Barrett The Illusion of Technique

"I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it."

Dame Edith Sitwell, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe and Mail Sept. 29, 2011

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not more so."

Albert Einstein, quoted by Burton Malkiel A Random Walk Down Wall Street

"Many persons in these days wish to retain the morality which they like, after getting rid of the religion which they disbelieve. Whether they are right or wrong in disturbing the foundation, they are inconsistent in wishing to save the superstructure."

James Fitzjames Stephen in Liberty Equality Fraternity

"He was a gentle, polite, elderly person with no more warmth in him than a hangman’s rope. The Agency wits said he could spit icicles in July."

Dashiell Hammett Red Harvest (the narrator re his boss at the Continental Detective Agency)

"The fact to which we have got to cling, as to a lifebelt, is that it is possible to be a normal decent person and yet be fully alive."

George Orwell, quoted by Jeffrey Hart in National Review Feb. 8, 1999

"Should a traveller give an account of men who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, and revenge; who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit, we should immediately detect the falsehood and prove him a liar with the same certitude as if he had stuffed his narration with centaurs and dragons."

David Hume in 1772, quoted by Robert Ardrey in The Territorial Imperative

"Many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already."

Seneca the Younger, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe and Mail Dec. 10, 2004