When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.

The wild black scavengers of the skies laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young. They soared high over prairies and mountains and plains, searching for the fulfillment of that share of life's destiny which was theirs according to the plan of Nature. Their philosophers demonstrated by unaided 15 Animals reason alone that the Supreme Cathartes aura regnans had created the world especially for buzzards. They worshipped him with hearty appetites for many centuries.

One should be embarrassed to speak of God in the third person.

The trouble with being a priest was that you eventually had to take the advice you gave to others.

To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law - a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.

Listen, my dear Cors, why don't you forgive God for allowing pain? If He didn't allow it, human courage, bravery, nobility, and self-sacrifice would all be meaningless things.

....to abuse the intellect for reasons of pride, vanity, or escape from responsibility, is the fruit of that same tree.