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Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Remarks to a Baptist convention in Texas during the 1952 presidential campaign
- Christianity
Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches⁠—he has made music sick.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Der Fall Wagner (1888)
- Music
When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder
that such trivial people should muse and thunder
in such lovely language.
D. H. Lawrence1885–1930Pansies (1929)
- Writing
And it is that word ‘hummy,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.
Dorothy Parker1893–1967Her “Constant Reader” book review of The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne, in The New Yorker (October 20, 1928)
- Writing
There was an attraction at first that Mr Baldwin should not be clever. But when he forever sentimentalises about his own stupidity, the charm is broken.
John Maynard Keynes1883–1946Keynes Papers, as quoted in Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, Vol. 2 (1992), p. 232
The greatest thing about this man is he’s steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday — no matter what happened Tuesday.
Stephen Colbertborn 1964White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner (April 2006)
- Presidency
Mr. Aldous Huxley, who is perhaps one of those people who have to perpetrate thirty bad novels before producing a good one, has a certain natural — but little developed — aptitude for seriousness.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965“The Contemporary English Novelist”, La Nouvelle Revue française (1 May 1927)
- Writing
Lenin was sent into Russia by the Germans in the same way that you might send a phial containing a culture of typhoid or cholera to be poured into the water supply of a great city, and it worked with amazing accuracy.
Winston Churchill1874–1965On Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in the House of Commons, November 5, 1919; as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 355
- History
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).
Richard Dawkinsborn 1941Reviewing Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution (1989) by Maitland A. Edey and Donald C. Johanson
- Science
Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
That few but such as cannot write, translate.
John Denham1615–1669To Sir Richard Fanshaw (1648), line 1
- Writing
A man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure — critics are ready-made.
Lord Byron1788–1824English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), Line 63.
An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.
Robert G. Ingersoll1833–1899Some Mistakes of Moses (1879) Section III, “The Politicians”.
- Anti-Religion
- Laws
One cannot now say, the priest is as the people, for the truth is that the people are not so bad as the priest.
Bernard of Clairvaux1090–1153In Conversione S. Pauli, Sermon 1, sect. 3; translation by James Spedding, in The Works of Francis Bacon (1860) vol. 12, p. 134
- Religion
In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?
Sydney Smith1771–1845Referring to the lack of established culture and the established institution of slavery in the United States, in “Review of Seybert’s Annals of the United States”, The Edinburgh Review (1820), pp. 79-80
- America
If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.
Harry S. Truman1884–1972Address at the National Convention Banquet of the Americans for Democratic Action (May 17, 1952)
- Politics