They had their lean books with the fat of others' works.

Good questions outrank easy answers.

It is better to be safe than sorry.

Material blessings, when they pay beyond the category of need, are weirdly fruitful of headache.

I distrust those sentiments that are too far removed from nature, and whose sublimity is blended with ridicule; which two are as near one another as extreme wisdom and folly.

The various moral and theological and sociological disputes of the day, however progressively resolved with ecclesiastical connivance, have nothing to say to this spiritual hunger, which is not assuaged by legalized abortion and homosexuality, solaced by contraception, or relieved by majority rule. Nor will it take comfort in the thought that God is dead, or that mankind has come of age, or even in ecumenical negotiations for writing off Papal Infallibility against the validity of Anglican Orders. The only means of satisfying it remains that bread of life which Jesus offered, with the promise that those who are of it should never hunger again. The promise stands.

The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.

The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything.

The really idle man gets nowhere. The perpetually busy man does not get much further.

And now, my honey love, Will we return unto thy father's house And revel it as bravely as the best, With silken coats and caps and golden rings, With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things; With scarfs and fans and double change of brav'ry, With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knav'ry.

The unlived life is not worth examining.

Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Three things a wise man will not trust, The wind, the sunshine of an April day, And woman's plighted faith.

Commemoration of Bridget of Sweden, Abbess of Vadstena, 1373 "In pastures green"? Not always; sometimes He, Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me In weary ways, where heavy shadows be. And "by still waters" ? No, not always so; Ofttimes the heavy tempests round me blow, And o'er my soul the waves and billows go. But when the storm beats loudest, and I cry Aloud for help, the Master standeth by, And whispers to my soul, "Lo, it is I." So, where He leads me, I can safely go, And in the blest hereafter I shall know Why, in His wisdom, He hath led me so. ... Anonymous July 24, 1998 Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, priest, spiritual writer, 1471 If thou shalt remain faithful and zealous in labour, doubt not that God shall be faithful and bountiful in rewarding thee. It is thy duty to have a good hope that thou wilt attain the victory: but thou must not fall into security lest thou become slothful or lifted up.

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that in itself is a choice.

The fastest way to find something you've lost is to replace it.

Hell is paved with the skulls of great scholars, and paled in with the bone of great men.

Grandparents: the people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.

For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, One passion doth expel another still.