Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the L hand double for all her sins. The voice of himthat crieth in the wilderness,Prepare ye the way of the L, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valleyshall be exalted,and everymountainand hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the L shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the L hath spoken it. The voicesaid,Cry. And hesaid,What shall Icry? All flesh isgrass, and all thegoodlinessthereof isastheflowerof the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the L bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORD'SORDORDORDORDIsaiah 40:1^8.

Angesichts von Hindernissen mag die ku«  rzeste Linie zwischen zwei Punkten die krumme sein. When it comes to obstacles, the shortest line between two points may be the crooked one. See Lessing 505:47.

-Brecht, Bertolt Eugen Friedrich
  Leben des Galilei ('The Life of Galileo'), sc.14 (translatedby Howard Benton,1980).

   Round and round the circle Completing the charm So the knot be unknotted The cross be uncrossed The crooked be made straight And the curse be ended.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  The Family Reunion, pt.2, sc.3.

  My crooked winding ways, wherein I live.

-Herbert, George
'A  Wreath', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

Aus so krummen Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made.

-Kant, Immanuel
  Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbu«  rgerlicher Absicht (Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose), prop.6.

We have seen Good men made evil wrangling with the evil, Straight mindsgrown crooked fighting crooked minds. Our peace betrayed us; we betrayed our peace. Look at it well.This was the good town once.

-Muir, Edwin
  The Labyrinth,'The Good Town'.