“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
Thomas Carlyle, quoted by Dale Carnegie How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (he calls them “The twenty-one words that this young medical student read in 1871 helped him to become the most famous physician of his generation.... His name was Sir William Osier.”
“Of those who say nothing, few are silent.”
Thomas Neill quoted on https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/525050-of-those-who-say-nothing-few-are-silent
“in a world without God, there is not room enough for a man.”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Joyce Little in an interview in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 2 #7 (June 1999)
“Don’t hate yourself in the morning – sleep till noon.”
Ashley Elliott quoted as the “Smile” (a feature contributed by readers, I believe) in Globe & Mail June 29, 2001
“Satan wants you to think that your sin and temptation are unique so you must keep them a secret. The truth is, we’re all in the same boat. We all fight the same temptations, and ‘all of us have sinned.’ Millions have felt what you’re feeling and have faced the same struggles you’re facing right now. The reasons we hide our faults is pride.”
Rick Warren The Purpose-Driven Life
“I will bloom wherever I am planted.”
MP Diane Ablonczy quoted in National Post July 10, 2000 [specifically to do with internal Canadian Alliance matters but a maxim of far broader relevance]
“We must have a holiday from habits, instead of merely a habit of taking holidays.”
G.K. Chesterton in London Magazine August 1924, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 16 #3 (Nov.-Dec. 2012)
In my latest National Post column I say John Le Carré’s novels were morally rotten and dangerous in practice.