Joseph Bottum Quotes

“Cities on the ocean have a choice whether to turn their faces or their backs to the water, lining the shore either with pretty hotels and rich homes or dim warehouses, narrow streets, and greasy piers. All prairie towns turn away from the prairie, however. The huddled houses form a storm-battened island in the midst of endless space.”

“A fierce hatred of embarrassment ruled a surprising amount of the life of Moses Malone, the Hall of Fame basketball center.”

“People who are easily embarrassed – those who blush too often and too soon – usually end up retreating from excellence.”

“(Dune's Frank) Herbert made religion the inescapable instrument of cultural change.”

“Anything that keeps old words in circulation is to be treasured, the French revolution be damned.”

“We have a name for the sum of grievances and compromises, this sheer normality of life lived among other people. We call it civilization. Culture, society, the workaday interactions of ordinary time.”

“Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered.Dr. Joseph Murphy”

“Modern civilization depends on science … James Smithson was well aware that knowledge should not be viewed as existing in isolated parts, but as a whole, each portion of which throws light on all the other, and that the tendency of all is to improve the human mind, and give it new sources of power and enjoyment … narrow minds think nothing of importance but their own favorite pursuit, but liberal views exclude no branch of science or literature, for they all contribute to sweeten, to adorn, and to embellish life … science is the pursuit above all which impresses us with the capacity of man for intellectual and moral progress and awakens the human intellect to aspiration for a higher condition of humanity.[Joseph Henry was the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, named after its benefactor, James Smithson.]”

“When you are down, the only place to go is up. -Pontius Joseph”

“Joseph lost his son and Christ. (Joseph a perdu - Son fils et Jésus.)”