Social Issues

Novelist, blogger, culture watcher, Christ-follower

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. -- Franz Kafka

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. – Andre Gide

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace. -- Oscar Wilde

I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman. -- Homer Simpson

Alas! Man's vices, horrible as they are supposed to be, contain the positive proof of his taste for the infinite. -- Baudelaire

Christian art? Art is art; painting is painting; music is music; a story is a story. If it's bad art, it's bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. -- Madeleine L'Engle

Morality may damn as well as vice. A vessel may be sunk with gold as well as with dung. -- Thomas Watson

The doubts of some are more indicative of a love for truth than the belief of others. -- John Ker

When I have found intense pain relieved, a weary brain soothed, and calm refreshing sleep obtained by a cigar, I have felt grateful to God, and have blessed His name. -- Charles Spurgeon

To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher. -- Blaise Pascal

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz

Is it not a great temptation to be so valiant in imagination and so cowardly in execution? -- St. Francis de Sales

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man. -- Albert Einstein

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. -- Thomas Jefferson

Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future. --Dr. Manhattan, Watchmen

A very famous writer once said, "A book is like a mirror. If a fool looks in, you can't expect a genius to look out." -- J.K. Rowling

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.. -- H.L. Mencken

Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability. -- Samuel Johnson

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. -- Woody Allen

Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government. -- G.K. Chesterton

The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish. -- Evelyn Waugh

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell. -- Thomas Merton

I'd rather be ruled by a competent turk than an incompetent Christian. -- Martin Luther

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -- Albert Einstein

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. -- Jesus

In measuring a circle, one begins anywhere. -- Charles Fort

The role of the artist is to not look away. -- Akira Kurosawa

Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The true nature of anything is what it becomes at its highest. -- Aristotle

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. -- French Proverb

Something always takes the place of missing pieces. -- Beck, Guero

What you look at hard seems to look at you. -- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian. -- Herman Melville

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. -- Thomas A. Edison

To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures. -- Flannery O'Connor

True friends stab you in the front. -- Oscar Wilde

Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat." -- C.S. Lewis

The ascetic is often a sensualist who has reached the limit of his capacity. -- Jacques Barzun

Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. -- Stephen King

All beneficent and creative power gathers itself together in silence, ere it issues out in might. -- James Martineau

It is much better to know something about everything, than everything about something. -- Pascal

How will we open the eyes of the dead, when we are hollow? -- Project 86, Truthless Heroes

There are, naturally, feelings that one cannot render. -- Degas

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort. -- Charles Dickens

I have no fear of drowning, It's the breathing that's taking all this work. -- Jars of Clay, Good Monsters

The world speaks of holy things in the only language it knows, which is worldly language. -- Frederick Buechner

It is better to think of church in the ale-house than to think of the ale-house in church. -- Martin Luther

When I am king you will be first against the wall. -- Radiohead, OK Computer

The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice. -- G.K. Chesterton

Trust the evolutionary process. It's all going to work out all right. -- Timothy Leary

We live in an age lit by lightnin'; after the flash, we're blind again. -- T-Bone Burnett, The Criminal Under My Own Hat

Action to relieve suffering is the abortion of karma. -- Os Guiness

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault. -- Henry Kissinger