"The idea of liberty has ultimately a religious root; that is why men find it so easy to die for and so difficult to define. It refers finally to the fact that, while the oyster and the palm tree have to save their lives by law, man has to save his soul by choice."
G.K. Chesterton, “The Free Man,” in A Miscellany of Men, quoted in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 6 #3 (December 2002)
“so much of a gentleman that even his faux pas were well-bred.”
G.K. Chesterton, The Club of Queer Trades (re the fictional "Lord Beaumont of Foxwood")
“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
"Ours is a rich and wonderful world, and there are stories everywhere. Nobody should ever try to second-guess history; the facts are fantastic enough."
Louis L’Amour, Education of a Wandering Man
"‘It must be inconvenient to be made of flesh,’ said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully, ‘for you must sleep, and eat and drink. However, you have brains, and it is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly.’”
L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz
"A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it."
Alistair Cooke, quoted in The Write File Quarterly Issue #5, Summer 1995
She dismisses an implausible claim as “like a clock that strikes 13. It throws into question all that has gone before it and all that follows.”
Arianna Huffington in National Review April 5, 1999
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it."
Henry Ford, quoted in Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power