The Middle

There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos.

-Jim Hightower

Labor

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.

-U.S. Grant

Women

When Women consider their own Beauties, they are all alike unreasonable in their demands; for they expect their Lovers should like them as long as they like themselves.

- John Gay

A Pendant

He treads in a rule, and one hand scans verses, and the other holds his sceptre. He dare not think a thought, that the nominative case governs not the verb; and he never had meaning in his life, for he travelled only for words. His ambition is criticism, and his example Tully. He values phrases, and elects them by sound, and the eight parts of speech are his servants. To be brief, he is the heteroclite for he wants the plural number, having only the single quality of words.

- Sir Thomas Overbury

Ambition Frustrated

The power of ambition which posseth the minds of men is such as rarely or never sufficeth them to rest: the reason therof is that Nature hath framed in them a certain disposition to desire all things but not the power to obtain them; so as our desires being greater than our power, thereof followeth discontent and evil satisfaction.

-Sir Walter Raliegh

Mind the Courtiers

When you censure the Age,
Be cautious and sage.
lest the Courtiers offended should be:
If you mention Vice or Bribe,
'Tis so pat to all the Tribe;
Each crys - That was levelled at me.

- John Gay

The Fundamentalist Mind

To tolerate more than [non-essentials] is not to deale indifferently with God: he that doth it, takes the scepter out of his hands and bid him stand by. Who hath to doe to institute religion but God? The power of all religion and ordinances, lies in their purity; their purity in their simplicity; then are mixtures pernicious.

- Nathaniel Ward

Confidence

It never troubles a wolf how many sheep there be.

-Virgil

Truth is a Labor

For questionlesse in knowledge there is no slender difficulty, and truth, which wise men say doth lye in a well, is not recoverable but by exantlation.

- Sir Thomas Browne

The Nearest Link

Whatever is, is right. Though purblind man
Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest link:
His eyes not carrying to the equal beam,
That poises all above.

-Dryden