A skeptic is a person who, when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it is a forgery.

Imagination continually frustrates tradition, that is its function. -John Pfeiffer.

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 The gospel comprises indeed, and unfolds, the whole mystery of man's redemption, as far forth as it is necessary to be known for our salvation: and the corpuscularian or mechanical philosophy strives to deduce all the phenomena of nature from adiaphorous matter, and local motion. But neither the fundamental doctrine of Christianity nor that of the powers and effects of matter and motion seems to be more than an epicycle ... of the great and universal system of God's contrivances, and makes but a part of the more general theory of things, knowable by the light of nature, improved by the information of the scriptures: so that both these doctrines... seem to be but members of the universal hypothesis, whose objects I conceive to be the natural counsels, and works of God, so far as they are discoverable by us in this life.

I wish a robot would get elected president. That way, when he came to town, we could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad.

Rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him. In Hebrew, "Be silent in God, and let Him mould thee." Keep still, and He will mould thee to the right shape.

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

If you decide not to choose then you've already made the wrong choice!

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use Unix.

There is merit without elevation, but there is no elevation without some merit.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Men aren't the way they are because they want to drive women crazy; they've been trained to be that way for thousands of years. And that training makes it very difficult for men to be intimate.

I seek for one as fair and gay, But find none to remind me, How blest the hours pass'd away With the girl I left behind me.

Let observation with observant view, Observe mankind from China to Peru.

Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.

If but a dozen French Were there in arms, they would be as a call To train ten thousand English to their side, Or as a little snow, tumbled about, Anon becomes a mountain.

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.

The Crab and Its Mother A crab said to her son, Why do you walk so one-sided, my child? It is far more becoming to go straight forward. The young Crab replied: Quite true, dear Mother, and if you will show me the straight way, I will promise to walk in it. The Mother tried in vain, and submitted without remonstrance to the reproof of her child. Example is more powerful than precept.

Pain is life--the sharper, the more evidence of life.

Had doting Priam checked his son's desire, Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire.