"Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man’s upper chamber if he has common sense on the ground floor."

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., "The Poet at the Breakfast-Table", quoted in Daniel Boorstin Cleopatra's Nose

"Learn your lines and don’t trip over the furniture."

Spencer Tracy's advice to young actors, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen to Go

"If there were anywhere on earth a resting place other than God, we may be very sure that the human soul in its long history would have found it before this."

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, quoted in National Review June 12, 1995

"I’m suitably impressed."

From my file of hidden insults, from a friend’s neighbour
 

"If a man wants to worship the Life Force merely because it is a Force, he may very naturally worship it in the electric battery. I am tempted to say it will serve him right if he eventually worships the life force in the electric chair."

G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 5 # 3 (Dec. 2001)

"It is really a strange thing that there should not be room enough in the world for men to live, without cutting one another’s throats."

George Washington, in W.B. Allen, ed., Washington: A Collection

"I’m creative, but somehow I lack the talent to go with it."

 Lily Tomlin, Search for Signs of Intelligent Life, quoted in The New Republic Oct. 7, 1991

"The sorcerer’s apprentice gets into trouble because he knows a little magic. If he knew none, he’d have no problem; nor would he have a problem if he knew enough."

George Jonas in Ottawa Citizen Jan. 3, 2005