“If God is watching us, as some believers suggest, as though we were a television show and God had a lot of free time, the deity would surely be bemused by how dumbed-down devotion has sometimes become in this so-called modern era. How might an omnipotent being with the long view of history respond to [...]

“O ye of little faith, who believe that somehow the birth of Christ is dependent upon acknowledgment in a circular from OfficeMax!”

“Or what about the statue in California currently said to be crying bloody tears? Why worry about the alleged weeping of a plaster effigy when so many actual human beings have reason to cry?”

“The world is full of women blindsided by the unceasing demands of motherhood, still flabbergasted by how a job can be terrific and torturous.”

“It is much easier to try one’s hand at many things than to concentrate one’s powers on one thing.”

“Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.”

“Nothing can be pleasing which is not also becoming.”

“That laughter costs too much which is purchased by the sacrifice of decency.”

“The perfection of art is to conceal art.”

“Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times the cause of virtues.”