"I have not changed my religion, I have only improved it. I do not hold my faith because it is that of the Portuguese, nor because it is the faith of Rome, but because it is the true faith. And do not deceive yourselves--for this faith I am prepared to die if necessary, but all those who contradict it will die first."
"Although a few profess erroneous creeds,
Nevertheless from Christ their faith proceeds."
". . . but I dreamed the head of a king
was carried on all, that they teemed on rooftops . . ."
"Most contemporary fund-raising turns on high-decibel assertions that everything's going to hell. It is not."
"Burke taught conservatives to respect tradition even when its rationale seems obscure, for tradition often represents the accumulated wisdom of generations past."
"Experience had taught them that truth had sharp edges and hard corners, and could be seriously at odds with kindness. They had learned that excessive devotion to even the highest things seemed and probably was sanctimonious, and that the one sufficient measure of excess was that look of annoyance, confirmed in themselves by a twinge of embarrassment, that meant the line had been crossed. They recognized grace in the readiness of the darkest sinner to take a little joke, a few self-effacing words, as an apology."
Ex Libris Kirkland (formerly known as "I Just Read . . .") is where I quote, at length, something I found interesting in my reading. The selected passages might be funny, or sad, or true, or false, or irritating, but they all bear thinking about - or at least writing down.
