Anglicans

"As we jogg on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in short do any thing—only keep your temper."

"Pray, my dear," quoth my mother, "have you not forgot to wind up the clock?" — "Good G—!" cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, — "Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?"

"Only the brave know how to forgive...A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature."

"I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me."

"How very much, good Sir, am I (amongst millions) indebted to you for the character of your amiable uncle Toby!—I declare, I would walk ten miles in the dog-days, to shake hands with the honest corporal.—Your Sermons have touch’d me to the heart, and I hope have amended it, which brings me to the point.—In your tenth discourse, page seventy-eight, in the second volume—is this very affecting passage—“Consider how great a part of our species—in all ages down to this—have been trod under the feet of cruel and capricious tyrants, who would neither hear their cries, nor pity their distresses.—Consider slavery—what it is—how bitter a draught—and how many millions are made to drink it!”—Of all my favorite authors, not one has drawn a tear in favour of my miserable black brethren—excepting yourself, and the humane author of Sir George Ellison Sarah Scott]."

"Who is this Yorick? you are pleased to ask me. You cannot, I imagine, have looked into his books: execrable I cannot but call them; for I am told that the third and fourth volumes are worse, if possible, than the two first, which, only, I have had the patience to run through. One extenuating circumstance attends his works, that they are too gross to be inflaming."

"Sterne is the great master of ambiguity – this word taken in a far wider sense than is usually done when it is accorded only a sexual signification. The reader who demands to know exactly what Sterne really thinks of a thing, whether he is making a serious or a laughing face, must be given up for lost: for he knows how to encompass both in a single facial expression; he likewise knows how, and even wants to be in the right and in the wrong at the same time, to knot together profundity and farce. His digressions are at the same time continuations and further developments of the story; his aphorisms are at the same time an expression of an attitude of irony towards all sententiousness, his antipathy to seriousness is united with a tendency to be unable to regard anything merely superficially. Thus he produces in the right reader a feeling of uncertainty as to whether one is walking, standing or lying: a feeling, that is, closely related to floating. He, the supplest of authors, communicates something of this suppleness to his reader. Indeed, Sterne unintentionally reverses these roles, and is sometimes as much reader as author; his book resembles a play within a play, an audience observed by another audience. One has to surrender unconditionally to Sterne's caprices – always in the expectation, however, that one will not regret doing so."

"How, in a book for free spirits, should there be no mention of Laurence Sterne, whom Goethe honoured as the most liberated spirit of his century! Let us content ourselves here simply with calling him the most liberated spirit of all time, in comparison with whom all others seem stiff, square, intolerant and boorishly direct."

"Well then, such strengthening reading during the last Joseph years was provided by two books: Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Goethe's Faust—a perplexing combination; but each of the two heterogeneous works has its particular function as a stimulant, and in the connection it was a pleasure for me to know that Goethe had held Sterne in very high esteem, and had called him one of the finest intellects who had ever lived."

"But after full account has been taken of Sterne's numerous deflections from the paths of literary rectitude—of his indecency, his buffoonery, his mawkishness, his plagiarisms, his wanton digressiveness—he remains, as the author of Tristram Shandy, a delineator of the comedy of human life before whom only three or four humorous writers, in any tongue or of any age, can justly claim precedence. Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Dr. Slop, Mr. and Mrs. Shandy, Obadiah, and the Widow Wadman are of the kin—however the degrees of kinship may be estimated—of Pantagruel and Don Quixote, of Falstaff and Juliet's Nurse, of Monsieur Jourdain and Tartuffe. For the guerilla warfare that he incidentally waged in his own freakish fashion throughout the novel on the pedantries and pretences of learning he deserves many of the honours that have been paid to Pope and Swift. No modern writer has shown a more certain touch in transferring to his canvas commonplace domestic scenes which only a master's hand can invest with point or interest. It is this kind of power especially that glorifies A Sentimental Journey. Defects due to the author's overstrained sensibility practically count for nothing against the artistic and finished beauty of the series of vignettes which Sterne, by his sureness of insight and descriptive faculty, created in A Sentimental Journey out of the simplest and most pedestrian episodes of travel."

"Time and the river and the mountain are the real heroes of my book [Finnegans Wake]... Yet the elements are exactly what every novelist might use: man and woman, birth, childhood, night, sleep, marriage, prayer, death... There is nothing paradoxical about all this... Only I am trying to build many planes of narrative with a single esthetic purpose... Did you ever read Laurence Sterne...?"

"There appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, sarcastic humour, and of extreme tenderness of feeling; the latter sometimes carried to affectation, as in the tale of Maria, and the apostrophe to the recording angel: but at other times pure, and without blemish. The story of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English language."

"His wit is poignant, though artificial; and his characters (though the groundwork of some of them had been laid before) have yet invaluable original differences; and the spirit of the execution, the master-strokes constantly thrown into them, are not to be surpassed."

"There is more of mannerism and affectation in him, and a more immediate reference to preceding authors; but his excellences, where he is excellent, are of the first order. His characters are intellectual and inventive, like Richardson's; but totally opposite in the execution. The one are made out by continuity, and patient repetition of touches: the others, by glancing transitions and graceful apposition. His style is equally different from Richardson's: it is at times the most rapid, the most happy, the most idiomatic of any that is to be found. It is the pure essence of English conversational style. His works consist only of morceaux—of brilliant passages."

"Friendship is the balm and cordial of life, and without it, ’tis a heavy load not worth sustaining."

"We must bring three parts in four of the treat along with us — In short we must be happy within — and then few things without us make much difference — This is my Shandean philosophy."

"I shall not die but live — in the mean time dear F. let us live as merrily but as innocently as we can. — It has ever been as good, if not better, than a bishoprick to me — and I desire no other."

"As far as my observation has reached, and the circle of it is by no means, a narrow one — an hard heart is always a cowardly heart. — Generosity and courage are associate virtues; and the character which possesses the former, must, in the nature of mental arrangements, be adorned with the latter. If I perceive a man to be capable of doing a mean action, — if I see him imperious and tyrannical; if he takes advantage of the weak to oppress, or of the poor to grind, or of the downcast to insult, — or is continually on the hunt after excuses not to do what he ought, — I determine such a man, though he may have fought fifty duels, to be a coward. — It is by no means a proof that a man is brave because he does not refuse to fight; — for we all know that cowards have fought, nay, — that cowards have conquered, — but a coward never performed a generous or a noble action: — and thou hast my authority to say, — and thou mightest find a worse, that a hard-hearted character never was a brave one. I say, thou mayst justly call such a man a coward, — and, if he should be spirited into a resentment of thy words — fear him not. — Tristram shall brighten his armour, and scour the rust from off his spear, and aid thee in the combat."

"Opinion, my dear fellow, somehow or other, rules all mankind; and not like a kind master, or, which would be more congenial, a gentle mistress, but like a tyrant, whose wish is power, and whose gratification is servility. — Opinion leads us by the ears, the eyes, — and, I had almost said, by the nose. It warps our understandings, confounds our judgments, dissipates experience and turns our passions to its purpose. In short, it becomes the governess of our lives, and usurps the place of reason, which it has kicked out of office. — This is among the strange truths which cannot be explained but by that mortifying description which time will display to your experience hereafter, with ten times the credit that would accompany any present endeavours of mine to the same purpose... A mistress, with all her arts and fascinations, may, in time, be got rid of; but opinion, once rooted, becomes a part of ourselves — it lives and dies with us."

"But this is his way; it is the language of his character; and, though one might wish it to be otherwise, yet I cannot tell what right any of us have to pass a severe sentence upon it, for no other reason in the world, but because our own failings are of a different complexion. And so much for all that."

"Every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, that it adds something to this Fragment of life."

"[T]he worst of human maladies is poverty — though that is a second lye — for poverty of spirit is worse than poverty of purse, by ten thousand per cent."

"Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw—and ’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven!—Eternal Fountain of our feelings!"

"God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb."

"I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary."

"We get forwards in the world not so much by doing services, as receiving them: you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it."

"In the years that have gone by there’s been the constant claim that we went to war based on a lie... There was no lie. There were errors in intelligence, but there was no lie."

"I'm not in favour of going back to a White Australia policy. I do believe that, if it [non-European immigration] is in the eyes of some in the community, it's too great, it would be in our immediate term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater."

"I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else'."

".. you must remember that the Australian voter has a short memory span... in fact, less than 14 days in most cases!"

"Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life."

"There's no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy... never ever, it's dead it was killed by the voters in the last election."

"I've never believed in lower wages. Never. Never believed in lower wages, I've never believed in lower wages as an economic instrument."

"By the year 2000 I would like to see an Australian nation that feels comfortable and relaxed about three things. I would like to see them comfortable and relaxed about their history. I would like to see them comfortable and relaxed about the present and I'd also like to see them comfortable and relaxed about the future."

"In a sense, it's always a sombre moment in a country where you ask the people who have done the right thing to put up with inconvenience because a limited number of people have done the wrong thing, but that is the nature of a democratic society."

"The 'black armband' view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. I take a very different view. I believe that the balance sheet of our history is one of heroic achievement and that we have achieved much more as a nation of which we can be proud of than which we should be ashamed."

"The debate over Australian history .. risks being distorted if its focus is confined only to the shortcomings of previous generations. It risks being further distorted if highly selective views of Australian history are used as the basis for endless and agonised navel-gazing about who we are or, as seems to have happened over recent years, as part of a 'perpetual seminar' for elite opinion about our national identity. The current debate over Australian history would benefit from a more balanced approach, from a wider perspective and from less pre-ordained pessimism. In the broad balance sheet of our history, there is a story of great Australian achievement to be told."

"Increasingly, modern government is about facing the challenge of very rapid change but also remembering that there are certain stabilisers in society that provide reassurance and support when a society is undergoing great change particularly of an economic character."

"Part of the job of a Prime Minister in these contemporary times is, whilst enthusiastically embracing change and globalisation, he or she must also embrace what is secure - what people see as 'home' I suppose. I want to provide Australians with this security as we embrace, as we must and will, a new and vastly different future."

"It is impossible as an Australian, as we come to the end of this century, not to feel an immense sense of surging excitement about the opportunities that lie in front of us. There is no nation on earth that has been gifted with the special combination of such assets. We are in every sense of the word a projection of Western civilisation in this part of the world. We have taken the good things from Europe, the liberal political traditions, the civility of our public life, and thankfully we have rejected the bad things of Europe, the stultifying class divisions built on tribal prejudice."

"[O]ne of the philosophical principles that has been at the heart of the policies of our Government over the last two-and-a-half years, has been the principle of mutual obligation. And what that says is that as a decent, compassionate, caring community, we look after those who, through no fault of their own, can’t find a job or who can’t care for themselves. We are not a society that will allow people literally to beg in the streets for survival. That has never been the Australian way, and under the Coalition it will never in the future be the Australian way. But we also believe that if people are supported by their fellow Australians, and they are able to do so they should provide something in return for that support."

"We are as you all know in a new and dangerous part of the world’s history. The tragic events of the 11th of September have changed our lives, they have caused us to take pause and think about the values we hold in common with the American people and free people around the world. That was an attack on Australia as much as it was an attack on the United States. It not only claimed the lives of Australians but it assaulted the very values that we hold dear and that we take for granted. So therefore a military response and wise diplomacy and a steady hand on the helm are needed to guide Australia through those very difficult circumstances. National Security is therefore about a proper response to terrorism. It's also about having a far sighted, strong, well thought out defence policy. It is also about having an uncompromising view about the fundamental right of this country to protect its borders. It's about this nation saying to the world we are a generous open hearted people, taking more refugees on a per capita basis than any nation except Canada, we have a proud record of welcoming people from 140 different nations. But we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."

"I think history will judge him very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barack, which involved the Israelis agreeing to 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted."

"When I became Prime Minister nine years ago, I believed that this nation was defining its place in the world too narrowly. My Government has rebalanced Australia's foreign policy to better reflect the unique intersection of history, geography, culture and economic opportunity that our country represents. Time has only strengthened my conviction that we do not face a choice between our history and our geography."

"I accept that in a free society you have to justify reductions in people's liberties. I accept that, bearing in mind my starting point is that the most important human right is the right to life..."

"The most important civil liberty... is to stay alive and to be free from violence and death..."

"I think when people talk about civil liberties, they sometimes forget that action taken to protect the citizen against physical violence and physical attack is a blow in favour and not a blow against civil liberties."

"There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe."

"For many years, it’s been the case that fewer than one-in-four senior secondary students in Australia take a history subject. And only a fraction of this study relates to Australian history. Real concerns also surround the teaching of Australian history in lower secondary and primary schools. Too often, Australian history has fallen victim in an ever more crowded curriculum to subjects deemed more ‘relevant’ to today. Too often, it is taught without any sense of structured narrative, replaced by a fragmented stew of ‘themes’ and ‘issues’. And too often, history, along with other subjects in the humanities, has succumbed to a postmodern culture of relativism where any objective record of achievement is questioned or repudiated. Part of preparing young Australians to be informed and active citizens is to teach them the central currents of our nation’s development. The subject matter should include indigenous history as part of the whole national inheritance. It should also cover the great and enduring heritage of Western civilisation, those nations that became the major tributaries of European settlement and in turn a sense of the original ways in which Australians from diverse backgrounds have created our own distinct history."

"In the end, young people are at risk of being disinherited from their community if that community lacks the courage and confidence to teach its history."