If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
(Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.)
― Cardinal Richelieu, French clergyman, noble, and statesman
The microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots,
On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen –
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us that they must be so …
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about.
Hilaire Belloc
Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea