“The fundamental question to be asked about any theological statement is, ‘What is the evidence that makes you think this might be true?’”
Author’s Introduction to John Polkinghorne The Faith of a Physicist
According to Schopenhauer “It is this removal of the personal equation which leaves the genius so maladapted in the world of will-full, practical, personal activity. By seeing so far he does not see what is near; he is imprudent and ‘queer’; and while his vision is hitched to a star he falls into a well.”
Will Durant The Story of Philosophy [paraphrasing not quoting]
“I think you’re the opposite of a paranoid. I think you go around with the insane delusion that people like you.”
Woody Allen, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail June 2, 2003 [and yes, we’re all feeling squeamish about Allen now but it’s still a good line].
“To be successful you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can’t just accept the ones you like.”
Mike Gafka, quoted by Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html
“The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort.”
C.S. Lewis “Christian Apologetics” in The Grand Miracle
“Other people’s heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man’s true happiness.”
Schopenhauer deploring the pursuit of fame in “Wisdom of Life,” quoted in Will Durant The Story of Philosophy
In my latest Epoch Times column I reflect for Remembrance Day on the moving ritual of sounding the Last Post at the Menin Gate every single night for 77 years and counting.
“He [the “mature man”] knows, with Carlyle, that there is no sense in vilifying the sun because it will not light our cigars. And perhaps, if we are clever enough to help it, the sun will do even that...”
Will Durant The Story of Philosophy [part of Durant’s critique of Schopenhauer’s excessive gloominess]