“But the standard churchy spirituality doesn’t require any real action, courage, or sacrifice from its attendees.”

Source: The Accidental Time Machine (2007), Chapter 12 (pp. 110-111)

G.F. Watts http://books.google.com/books?id=PLpLAAAAMAAJ&q="There+is+only+one+thing+that+it+requires+real+courage+to+say+and+that+is+a+truism"&pg=PA17#v=onepage (1904)

This quotation was actually by Henning W. Prentis, Jr., president of the Armstrong Cork Company and former president of the National Association of Manufacturers, in a February 1943 address entitled &quot; The Cult of Competency http://ergo-sum.net/literature/CultOfCompetency.pdf&quot; delivered at a Mid-Year Convocation of the General Alumni Society of the University of Pennsylvania (The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, Vol. XLV, Numb. III, April 1943, pp. 272-73). <br class="br">This quotation sometimes appears joined with the above one, most notably as part of a longer piece which began circulating on the Internet shortly after the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election ( &quot;The Fall of the Athenian Republic,&quot; http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp Urban Legends Reference Pages):<br>::A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.<br>The average age of the world&#x27;s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:<br>::* From bondage to spiritual faith;<br>::* From spiritual faith to great courage;<br>::* From courage to liberty;<br>::* From liberty to abundance;<br>::* From abundance to complacency;<br>::* From complacency to apathy;<br>::* From apathy to dependence;<br>::* From dependence back into bondage. <br class="br">Attributed

Source: House of Cards

Source: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 2

1961, Berlin Crisis speech

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 95

Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho

"About the screenplay for Strangers on a Train" (notes, 1950), first published in Raymond Chandler Speaking (1962), section "Chandler on the Film World and Television", p. 134
Context: When you read a story, you accept its implausibilities and extravagances, because they are no more fantastic than the conventions of the medium itself. But when you look at real people, moving against a real background, and hear them speaking real words, your imagination is anaesthetized. You accept what you see and hear, but you do not complement it from the resources of your own imagination. The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.