Arthur Ashe - Richard Dawkins TV - C S Lewis - William Shakespeare - Jane Austen - Oscar Wilde - W Somerset Maugham - Thomas Babington Macaulay - Job 16:2 - Isaiah 40:1 - Mahatma Gandhi - Lao Tzu -
Disturb the Comfortable and Comfort the Disturbed. Athur Ashe, book inscription to wife, cited Storyville: Citizen Ashe, BBC 2022
What is comforting and what is true are two entirely different things. Richard Dawkins, lecture Lynchburg Virginia, ‘The God Delusion’
The comfort it provides is a shallow pretence. Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? The God Delusion, Channel 4 2006
If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. C S Lewis
Of comfort no man speak.
Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. William Shakespeare, Richard II III ii 140-143, King Richard
I do not ask you much:
I beg cold comfort. William Shakespeare, King John V vii 41
Live a little, comfort a little, cheer thyself a little. William Shakespeare, As You Like It II vi 5, Orlando to Adam
He receives comfort like cold porridge. William Shakespeare, The Tempest II i 10, Sebastian
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman, coloured ill. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 144
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Jane Austen
Comfort is the only thing our civilization can give us. Oscar Wilde
Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too. W Somerset Maugham
They knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort. Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essays to Edinburgh Review 1843, re struggling writers in Johnson’s day
Miserable comforters are ye all. Job 16:2
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Isaiah 40:1
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it. Mahatma Gandhi
A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar. Lao Tzu