“Some men storm imaginary Alps all their lives, and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist.”
Edgar Watson Howe quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail July 18, 2011
In my latest Mercatornet column I say people should be sad and compassionate not vindictive over racism and riots in the United States and elsewhere.
“We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities.”
John Winthrop, quoted by Richard John Neuhaus in First Things November 2002
“Paradox is the only basket large enough to hold truth…”
Robert Capon The Supper of the Lamb
“For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.”
Thucydides quoting Pericles’ “Funeral Oration” from The Peloponnesian War (an online version; other translations exist, obviously)
“It is quite easy to give people a second nature, if you catch them early enough. There is no belief, however grotesque and even villainous, that cannot be made a part of human nature if it is inculcated in childhood and not contradicted in the child’s hearing.”
George Bernard Shaw Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism (he cites foot-binding, ritual suicide when the king dies and suttee).
“If they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you.”
A rule attributed to “Dr. Phil” in a letter from Shannon Bunkowsky of Winnipeg in Maclean’s Oct. 23, 2006
“Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.”
George Sand, quoted on https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_sand_390195