“This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have believed it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.”
Nero Wolfe to Archie Goodwin in Rex Stout Fer de Lance
“Yes, ‘hereafter’ was everything: without that prospect, all life would have been a nasty joke…”
The internal monologue of Eddie Cain in “Lex Talionis” in Russell Kirk Ancestral Shadows
Re a scene in Romeo and Juliet “That’s not ‘realistic,’ of course: in whatever real life may be, lovers don’t start cooing in sonnet form.”
Northrop Frye (I think in a book Frye on Shakespeare but my note to myself on the subject was cryptic)
“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”
Eric Hoffer, quoted on “Preacher’s Illustrative Nuggets” (www.hound-dog-media.com/2014/01/gamblers-fools-and-egotists-59-still_31.html)
“There is a proof that common sense and the higher mysteries lie very close together. It is the fact that they are frequently and even continually absent simultaneously from the same person.”
G.K. Chesterton in Daily News April 2, 1904, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 # 6 4-5/05
“When the horse dies, dismount.”
“Anonymous”, quoted by Malcolm Hamilton in National Post Nov. 21, 2003
“They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer – not an easy answer – but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.”
Ronald Reagan “A Time for Choosing” (a.k.a. “The Speech”) October 27, 1964