“I’m not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.”
William Hazlitt [https://www.azquotes.com/quote/127744]
“Charlemagne receives a buffet that goes near to bring him down: the voice of St Gabriel, rallying him, has that tart stringency which distinguishes the Divine word from pious vapourings: ‘And what’, said he, ‘art thou about, great King?’”
Dorothy L. Sayers’ introduction to The Song of Roland
“It’s just a stage you’re going through.”
Me c. August 2000 if an actor falls through a trap door or steps on a rotten board during a performance.
“Intelligence is a talent, not a virtue. Even so it is less about sheer ability than about the organization of personality.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“There followed a long and intricate rivalry for leadership between the various Anglo-Saxon kings which occupied the seventh and eighth centuries. It was highly important to those whose span of life was cast in that period, but it left small marks on the subsequent course of history.”
Winston Churchill A History of the English-Speaking Peoples A One-Volume Abridgement by Christopher Lee
“The Modern Mind is so called to distinguish it from the Mind.”
G.K. Chesterton in America March 15, 1930, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023)
“I like a look of Agony because I know it’s true.”
Emily Dickenson quoted in Thomas Boswell How Life Imitates the World Series
“You can observe a lot just by watching.”
Emailed by a friend and attributed to Yogi Berra, plausibly, though it exists in various versions including "You can see a lot, just by looking" and "You can observe a lot by watchin'" and "You can observe a lot by just watching" [see for instance https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/25697/what-is-the-source-of-the-quote-you-can-see-a-lot-just-by-looking].