The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or piece of prose he or she really loves...is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital. When two of God's children join hands and hearts, all of Heaven rejoices. Thanks to a subscriber - Pamela Watkins -George Steiner.

Occasions are rare; and those who know how to seize upon them are rarer.

I'm proud that I'm a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.

'Tis strange how like a very dunce, Man, with his bumps upon his sconce, Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he Has had, till lately, of Phrenology-- A science that by simple dint of Head-combing he should find a hint of, When scratching o'er those little pole-hills The faculties throw up like mole hills.

Loquacity and lying are cousins.

A mob is a group of persons with heads but no brains. Thomas Fuller.

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE It belongs to the very nature of the gospel that the Church is built across cultural, social, and racial barriers. There are siren voices (as well as gut reactions) telling Christians that the way to success in evangelism is to follow the natural divisions, and to try to build churches along cultural, social and racial divisions. In doing so, they ignore the "success" in the New Testament in crossing these lines; more importantly, they are in fact stressing success more highly than the truth of the gospel. To buy success at the price of treating the fundamental nature of the gospel as dispensable is to follow a false gospel.

What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

When clouds are seen wise men put on their cloaks; When great leaves fall then winter is at hand.

It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing.

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 (Peter) Waldo, a business-man in Lyons, France, in about A.D. 1170 became intensely curious as to the content of the Scriptures. But he could not read Latin, and so the Scriptures were a closed book to him. However, he hired two money-minded priests, who, in violation of strict regulations, translated the Bible for him into Provençal, the language of southern France. The content of the Word of God made such an impression upon this earnest man that he gave up his business, took upon himself a vow of poverty, and dedicated himself to the simple preaching of the contents of God's Word. The Latin of the Church only mystified its hearers [but] Waldo's humble preaching edified the souls of men. His words were not spectacular but powerful, as he pleaded with them to repent. Much of his preaching and that of his followers consisted in reciting long passages of Scripture in the vernacular. Many of them could not afford an expensive handwritten copy of the Bible, and the ecclesiastical authorities could too easily rob them of such a book; but they could not erase the words which were treasured in the heart.

We don't have the right to ask when sorrow comes: Why did this happen to me?, unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our way.

Moderation is the secret of survival.

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. -Samuel Ullman.

There is incredible value in being of service to others. I think if many of the people in therapy offices were dragged out to put their finger in a dike, take up their place in a working line, they would be relieved of terrible burdens. -Elizabeth Berg.

I make money using my brains and lose money listening to my heart. But in the long run my books balance pretty well.

The wise old owl lived in an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard: Why can't we all be like that bird? -Edward H. Richards.