Proverbs 17:27

He who restrains his words has knowledge.

—Proverbs 17:27 NASB.

Father Brown

All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe.... We matter to God — God only knows why.

—Father Brown, in G. K. Chesterton's The Quick One (The Complete Father Brown ch44, quoted in Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read, ch5 p145.)

Philip Yancey

Children learn to communicate by talking about pooping and tinkling, then grow into repressed adults, then make their children out to be nothing but their own bodies, then in senile old age revert once again to conversation about pooping and tinkling. What is the point of this merry-go-round?

—Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read, ch5 p145.

Sense and Sensibility

It was impossible that less than a week should be given up to the enjoyment of her company, or suffice to say half that was to be said of the past, the present, and the future;—for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of incessant talking will despatch more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is different. Between them no subject is finished, no communication is even made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.

—Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Pride and Prejudice

"My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be."

—Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.

—Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice