You Did

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
--The Bible (Matthew 25:40)

Objects

Objects once prized lose their newness and become disposable. But they have spiritual properties, and to discard them carelessly is to dishonor the past that shaped us.
--David Edelstein

December 1910

On or about December 1910, human character changed.
--Virginia Woolf

Free

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
--Denis Diderot

Powerful

Mr. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life" said: "George, I'm an old man and most people hate me. But I don't like them either so that makes it all even." I think that's probably the default position among the rich and powerful.
--Joe Posnanski

Limited People

Running a country is so difficult, it is generally only rather limited people who feel they are up to the task.
--Alain de Botton

History

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
--Karl Marx

Nonsense

We live in a nation where our responsible leaders are afraid to talk sense to us while the most irresponsible demagogues feel absolute license to talk nonsense to us.
--Mitch Gitman

Inflexible

Complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond.
--Clay Shirky

Unlikely

There is a common compulsion to describe unlikely outcomes as miraculous--if they are happy, of course. If sad, they are simply reported on, or among the believing described as "the will of God." Some disasters are so horrible they don't qualify as the will of God, but as the work of Satan playing for the other team.
--Roger Ebert

Punish

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
--Thomas Paine

The Fire

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
--Mark Twain

Our Lives

I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces--my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that.
--Elizabeth Edwards

New Forums

Blogs, email, social networks, and text messages have opened up new forums for exchanging ideas--and created new targets for censorship....Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society, or any other, pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society.
--Hillary Clinton (January 2010)

Pathological

Millionaires and billionaires are going to need a little nudge and some heavy duty therapy in the form of fair taxation to cure them of their pathological hoarding.
--Karen Garcia

Honor

The point isn't to achieve everything, simply to honor what one suspects one is capable of.
--Alain de Botton

Myths

Many people nowadays think only primitive people believe in myths, but myths dominate the thinking of every society, including our own. A myth is a story that makes sense of the world. Most ancient cultures took their myths from religion; most modern societies take theirs from science or political ideology.
--John Michael Greer

Unnatural

How lonely and unnatural man is and how deep and well-concealed are his confusions.
--John Cheever