Inscriptions here of various Names I view'd,The greater part by hostile time subdu'd;Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,And Poets once had promis'd they should last.

The truth posed a great dilemma for a man who always had to be right, and yet, for all his grandeur, was often wrong.

Feelings of superiority always stem from an illusion.

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924).

It is not reputation, fame, success or religiosity that glorifies God, it's slavery.

It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60).

The Duke has decreed that the Castle is not cold.' The gentleman's lips are almost blue from this lack of cold. 'And the Duke is right and correct in this as in all things.'...Some very beautiful tapestries line the walls, but many of them are also full of holes. Perhaps the Duke has decreed that there are no moths, either.

The scientists have given [modern man] the impression that there is nothing he cannot know, and false propagandists have told him that there is nothing he cannot have.

Deeply convinced of the reality of the divine will, he (Lincoln) had no patience at all with any who were perfectly sure they knew the details of the divine will.

Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.