William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when you were not: that gives us no concern. Why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? To die is only to be as we were before we were born. -William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

Nice try, Bill, but it won't do. The fact of death will ever cause us anxiety because somehow we know that it isn't the end, but we don't know, of our reason, what follows. Faith is what we need.

Albert Einstein

The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

But, of course, to tolerate or encourage evil is in itself evil. Perhaps the greater problem of evil in the world is that so many don't recognize this truth.

Ronald Reagan, 40th US President (1911-2004)

We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate. -Ronald Reagan, 40th US President (1911-2004)

What President Reagan said is the historical fact and the founding ideal of the country, but I think he would be dismayed by the fact that religious belief is being driven more and more out of the debates over public policy. We are approaching the condition of mandating unbelief.

John Steinbeck

Among men, it seems, historically at any rate, that processes of co-ordination and disintegration follow each other with great regularity, and the index of the co-ordination is the measure of the disintegration which follows. There is no mob like a group of well-drilled soldiers when they have thrown off their discipline. And there is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him. There is no hater like one who has greatly loved. -John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

This is expressed with great assurance and so tends to carry one along with it, but I think it contains some truth and some error. Significantly, the generalizations are where the errors are. It may well be true that a mob of soldiers is most dangerous, and that a man upheld by a clear pattern may be quite lost without it.  But I don't think it is generally true that the degree of chaos is an index of the order that preceded it. More importantly, I don't think that one who truly loves greatly would ever be a great hater.

Phyllis Bottome, novelist (1884-1963)

Elvira always lied first to herself before she lied to anybody else, since this gave her a conviction of moral honesty. -Phyllis Bottome, novelist (1884-1963)

This describes a very dangerous habit of mind. It is one reason Scripture admonishes us so often to live in the light.

Ernest Hemingway

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. -Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)

Instead of "destroyed," I would say with St. Paul, "struck down, but not destroyed." (2 Cor. 4:9)