. . . the state of things and the dispositions of men were then such, that a man could not well tell whom he might trust or whom he might fear.

An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man.

Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion.

Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later...that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. The Bonfire of the Vanities

Beware the man of one book.

A judicious man uses statistics, not to get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted upon him