Quote: A.W.F. Edwards on Scientists and Statisticians

The perpetual sniping which statisticians suffer at the hands of practising scientists is largely due to their collective arrogance in presuming to direct the scientist in his consideration of hypotheses; the best contribution they can make is to provide some measure of 'support', and the failure of all but a few to admit the weaknesses of the conventional approaches has not improved the scientists' opinion.

Edwards AWF. 1972. Likelihood. An account of the statistical concept of likelihood and its application to scientific inference. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Chapter 3: Support. Page 34.

Quote: GK Chesterton from 'Orthodoxy'—Nature

The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.

Chesterton GK. 1908. Orthodoxy. Image, New York (2001 Edition)
Chapter VII: The Eternal Revolution. Page 115.

Quote: GK Chesterton from 'Orthodoxy'

Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing—say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico, for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved. For decoration is not given to hide horrible things: but to decorate things already adorable. A mother does not give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it. A lover does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence.

Chesterton GK. 1908. Orthodoxy. Image, New York (2001 Edition)
Chapter V: The Flag of the World. Page 66.

The Lay of Gudrún (stanzas 100–101)

At the dark doorways
They dinned and hammered;
there was clang of swords
and crash of axes.
The smiths of battle
smote the anvils;
sparked and splintered
spears and helmets.

In they hacked them,
out they hurled them,
bears assailing,
boars defending.
Stones and stairways
streamed and darkened;
day came dimly —
the doors were held.

The Lay of Gudrún, stanzas 100–101.
JRR Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. (2009). The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún. Harper Collins.

Quote: Jules Verne

Been reading Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea lately, and the following quote amused me somewhat:

Truly if this good fellow had had gills instead of lungs, I think he would have made a very good fish.—Chapter 19, "The Gulf Stream"