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Rightly understood, the problem of God is not one problem among several; it is the only problem there is.

   ~~~ Schubert Ogden #

It were certainly to be wished that some expedient were fallen upon to reconcile philosophy and common sense, which . . . have waged most cruel wars with each other.

   ~~~ Hume

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No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the mistake is to do it solemnly.

   ~~~ Montaigne
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Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness—all foes to real understanding. Likewise tolerance or broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in our little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

   ~~~ Mark Twain
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You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

   ~~~ Naguib Mahfouz
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There is something so massive, stable, and almost irresistibly imposing in the exterior presentment of established rank and great possessions, that their very existence seems to give them a right to exist; at least, so excellent a counterfeit of right, that few poor and humble men have moral force enough to question it, even in their secret minds.

   ~~~ The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Yet the truth that dwells in the core of all things none but the few do contemplate.

   ~~~ De Veritate, St. Anselm
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It’s said that when Henry James received a manuscript that he didn’t like, he would return it with the comment, “You have chosen a good subject and are treating it in a straightforward manner.” This usually pleased the person getting the manuscript back, but it was the worst thing that James could think of to say, for he knew better than anybody else, that the straightforward manner is seldom equal to the complications of the good subject.

   ~~~ Flannery O’Connor
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So many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance and disease of the majority of their fellowmen.

   ~~~ W.E.B. Du Bois
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He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue.

   ~~~ Andrew Lang
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Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

   ~~~ Moby Dick, Herman Melville
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We work in the dark – we do what we can – we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

   ~~~ “The Middle Years,” Henry James
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She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.

   ~~~ Beloved, Toni Morrison
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No one who loves young people can share in the delight they seem to feel in lightening their knapsacks and throwing away the basic rations they will eventually need when the going gets rough.

   ~~~ Josef Pieper
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How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.

    ~~~ Eric Hoffer #