Investigative television shows like 60 Minutes are always finding someone on death row who didn't do it. They never conclude he really did do it. It's puzzling to viewers because someone out there is murdering people.

-- "Common Nonsense Addressed to the Reading Public,"
by Andy Rooney

While I don't understand the airline business or its problems, I see them doing small things wrong that I do understand. It makes me suspicious of the intelligence they use with their major problems. One airline I have used frequently proudly serves "warm nuts." I am sitting strapped to my seat, a captive audience seething at being forced to listen to the commercials over the intercom after paying a fortune for my ticket, when a flight attendant offers "warm nuts." What food expert at the airline's home office decided warm nuts were a good idea?

-- "Common Nonsense Addressed to the Reading Public,"
by Andy Rooney

The idea of having a cup of coffee is usually better than the coffee.

-- "Common Nonsense Addressed to the Reading Public,"
by Andy Rooney

[A]n inclination joined with an ability to serve mankind, one's country, friends and family . . . should indeed be the great AIM and END of all learning.

-- Benjamin Franklin, in "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life," by Walter Isaacson

Thus, to imagine an infinite universe was merely to grant almighty God His proper due.

-- "Galileo's Daughter," by Dava Sobel

As earnestly as men may seek to understand the workings of the universe, they must remember that God is not hampered by their limited logic -- that all observed effects may have been wrought by Him in any one of an infinite number of omnipotent ways, and these must ever evade mortal comprehension.

-- "Galileo's Daughter," by Dava Sobel

I have been missing the point.
The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person.
The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be?
What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts?

-- from "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,"
by Rebecca Wells

***

Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love for Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.

-- Galileo, from "Galileo's Daughter," by Dava Sobel