“the sort of story in which Jane is just like Tarzan, but with cleavage.”
J. Budziszewski in the Underground Thomist May 5, 2025 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/in-defense-of-a-stereotype].
“Never in human history were there writers who so sacrificed their humour and human dignity and hope of heaven, in order to be shocking. And never, in human history, were there readers who were so little shocked. There is no time or space for any shock to take effect.”
G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly August 22, 1935, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #3 (Jan./Feb. 2025)
“Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition ...”
Ayatollah Khomeini “Meeting in Qom "Broadcast by radio Iran from Qom on 20 August 1979." quoted in The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (1986), by Amir Taheri, Adler & Adler, p. 259” according to Wikipedia article on “Khomeinism”, “Sternness and austerity” section [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khomeinism#Sternness_and_austerity] as of 23/6/25.
“When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.”
Charles Evans Hughes, as header quotation on Frontier Centre Weekly E-newsletter Update June 18, 2025 [https://mailchi.mp/fcpp/foreign-affairs-economy-education-military-leaders-on-the-frontier].
“Life’s short. Make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers about politics.”
An image emailed by a friend without attribution June 9, 2025
“Students of popular science… are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism”
G.K. Chesterton “Art and Religion” reprinted in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #2 (Nov./Dec. 2024)
“Nazism was an attempt to lie beautifully to the German nation and to the world. The beautiful lie is, however, also the essence of kitsch. Kitsch is a form of make-believe, a form of deception. It is an alternative to the daily reality that would otherwise be a spiritual vacuum. It represents ‘fun’ and ‘excitement,’ energy and spectacle and above all ‘beauty.’ Kitsch replaces ethics with aesthetics. Kitsch is the mask of Death. Nazism was the ultimate expression of kitsch, of its mind-numbing, death-dealing portent. Naziism, like kitsch, masqueraded as life; the reality of both was death. The Third Reich was the creation of ‘kitsch men,’ people who confused the relationship between life and art, reality and myth, and who regarded the goal of existence as mere affirmation, devoid of criticism, difficulty, insight. Their sensibility was rooted in superficiality, falsity, plagiarism, and forgery. Their art was rooted in ugliness. They took the ideals, though not the form, of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century avant-garde, and of the German nation in the Great War, and by means of technology – the mirror – they suited these ideals to their own purpose. Germany, the home of Dichter und Denker [Poets and thinkers], of many of the greatest cultural achievements of modern man, became in the Third Reich the home of Richter und Henker [Judges and hangmen]: the incarnation of kitsch and nihilism.”
Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era
“We have seen the end of the age of Reason; and that we live in the age of Suggestion. Perhaps for the first time, the degradation of Man has been openly declared; in a theory that he can be persuaded without being convinced.”
G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly Nov. 1, 1934, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #2 (Nov./Dec. 2024)