“In methods, tactics, and instruments of war, Germany took the initiative in 1914. The war was to bring a revolution in the European spirit and, as a corollary, in the European state structure. Germany was the revolutionary power of Europe. Located in the centre of the continent, she set out to become the leader of Europe, the heart of Europe, as she put it. Germany not only represented the idea of revolution in this war; she backed the forces of revolution everywhere, whatever their ultimate goals. She helped Roger Casement and the Irish nationalists in their struggle against Britain, and shipped Lenin back to Russia from Switzerland to foment revolution in Petrograd. What was important above all for Germans was the overthrow of the old structures. That was the whole point of the war. Once that had been achieved, the revolutionary dynamic would proceed to erect new structures valid for the new situation.”

Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era

“Such is the quality of many of the ‘experts’ presented to the public in recent years; buffoonish, delusional, and wrong. Experts are not neutral players, and nearly all have an agenda that they want to see advanced. The cult of the ‘expert’ is an epidemic that must be rooted out like a weed, for their frequently wrong predictions have exposed that their credentials have not made them any less clueless than the rest of us about the future. In an ideal world, we can rely upon experts to provide measured advice to help guide and shape policy. When they fail in that consistently, their credibility is shot, and right now, a good deal of them could use a few slices of humble pie.”

Geoff Russ in National Post August 29, 2024

“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.”

C.P. Snow The Two Cultures [he calls this “Schiller’s helpful line”]

“To grab yourself more thinking time, Alan Connor of BBC News Magazine advises: ‘The most common advice boils down to something that might seem obvious: Only work when you’re being paid to work. The rest of the day is yours to do with as you wish - and you may wish to devote it to thought. Obvious, perhaps, but not obvious enough that we do it: ... between 50 and 80 per cent of us skip an actual break for lunch, let alone using the hour for quiet contemplation. You might not have heard the unspeakable expression “eating al desko,” but if you’ve been in an office, you’ve probably witnessed the sorry spectacle of a workstation becoming a dining table for seven minutes and a hastily chomped panino.’”

“Social Studies” in Globe & Mail August 1, 2008

“Despite these appearances the ancient faith was diseased at the bottom and at the top. The deification of the emperors revealed not how much the upper classes thought of their rulers, but how little they thought of their gods. Among educated men philosophy was whittling away belief even while patronizing it.... The rich youths who went to Athens, Alexandria, and Rhodes for higher education found no sustenance there for the Roman creed. Greek poets made fun of the Roman pantheon, and Roman poets leaped to imitate them. The problems of Ovid assumed that the gods were fables; the epigrams of Martial assumed that they were jokes; and no one seems to have complained.”

Will Durant Caesar and Christ

“Though we observe the higher law/ and though we have our quarrel just,/ Were I permitted to withdraw/ You wouldn’t see my arse for dust./ A soldier’s verse”

First of three header quotations in Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era on Section or Chapter VII

“It seems to me this pleasure-mad generation has lost the art of enjoyment.”

G.K. Chesterton in Gloucestershire Echo, Oct. 26, 1925, quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #1 (September-October 2024)

“The flexibility of the ius gentium facilitated the transmission of Roman law to medieval and modern states. It was a happy accident that while the chaos of barbarian invasion was mutilating the legal heritage in the West, the Code, Digest, and Institutes of Justinian were collected and formulated in Constantinople, in the comparative security and continuity of the Empire in the East. Through these labours, and a hundred lesser channels, and the silent tenacity of useful ways, Roman law entered into the canon law of the medieval Church, inspired the thinkers of the Renaissance, and became the basic law of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, even – within the British Empire – of Scotland, Quebec, Ceylon, and South Africa. English law itself, the only legal edifice of comparable scope, took its rules of equity, admiralty, guardianship, and bequests from Roman canon law. Greek science and philosophy, Judeo-Greek Christianity, Greco-Roman democracy, Roman law – these are supreme inheritance from the ancient world.”

Will Durant Caesar and Christ