I know that an author must be brave enough to chop away clinging tentacles of good taste for the sake of a great work. But this is no great work, you see.
We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
Those who suffer great adversity and sorrow and go on to serve their fellowmen develop a great capacity to understand others. Like the prophets, they have acquired a higher understanding of the mind and will of Christ.
Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.
Melvin B. Tolson: We're holding tryouts for the debate team. Henry Lowe: You sure you want somebody like me? Melvin B. Tolson: No. That's why you're trying out.
Ramsey: [in the first meeting with Von Luger is informed of the large amount of resources being used to guard the prisoners] Well, it's rather nice to know that you're wanted.
Dumbledore: It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.
Smalls: Oh yeah, the Great Bambino. Of course! I thought you said the Great Bambi. Ham Porter: That wimpy deer? Smalls: Yeah, I guess. Sorry.
Han Solo: Where did you dig up that old fossil? Luke Skywalker: Ben is a great man. Han Solo: Yeah, great at getting us into trouble.
There is not a great difference between a man and a tree. Both are created by God; both are originated from a seed; both grow and both have intention to serve the Universe. So is there a great difference between a man and a tree?
It is the simple things that are in the ocean. People think that simple things are on the seashore, like seashells. But seashells are just illusions of the things that once used to live inside of them, that are back in the sea! They are dead things, ...
Happiness, it's a small thing - just a very little thing.
Good human work honors God's work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors nature as a great mystery an...
A man protects his fish from rats by keeping it under a cat's watch. How wise! Another buys a gun for security reasons, but decides to kill a ghost with it. How smart! One prays to God for safety, as he climbs a palm tree with sewing thread. How inte...
Now, he thought, since all these most easily perishing things have slipped from me again, now I'm standing here under the sun again just as I have been standing here a little child, nothing is mine, I have no abilities, there is nothing I could bring...
Bouchalka was not a reflective person. He had his own idea of what a great prima donna should be like, and he took it for granted that Mme. Garnet corresponded to his conception. The curious thing was that he managed to impress his idea upon Cressida...
God and Destiny are not against us, rather they are for us, they are the ones who never forget the things we have long forgotten, the ones who hear the desires of our heart that our own heads can't hear, and they are the ones who never forget who we ...
The thing people don't understand about an army is its great, unpunctuated wastes of inaction: you have to scavenge for food, you are camped out somewhere with a rising water level because your mad capitaine says so, you are shifted abruptly in the m...
The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. With...
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
If it's not one thing it's another.