Thomas Powell

“Smell is of all senses by far the most evocative: perhaps because we have no vocabulary for it – nothing but a few poverty-stricken approximations to describe the whole vast complexity of odour – and therefore the scent, unnamed and unnamable, remains pure of association; it cannot be called upon again and again, and blunted, by the use of a word; and so it strikes afresh every time, bringing with it all the circumstances of its first perception.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Post Captain

“Every congregation is a congregation of sinners. As if that weren’t bad enough, they all have sinners for pastors.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant an Exploration in Vocational Holiness

“November is, for many reasons, the month for the axe. It is warm enough to grind an axe without freezing, but cold enough to fell a tree in comfort.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There

“I speak only for myself, mind – it is my own truth alone – but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have – for what they are – are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander