“The aim of argument is differing in order to agree; the failure of argument is when you agree to differ.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News April 1, 1911, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #2 (Oct.-Nov. 2004)
“Nobody really believes in anything anymore, and everyone spends his life in frenzied work and frenzied play so as not to face the fact, not to look into the abyss.”
Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind (discussing Nietzsche’s views)
“Human nature, Thucydides argued, is constant and hence predictable.”
R.M. Ogilvie in the Introduction to Livy The Early History of Rome, adding that Livy used that insight as "the framework of his history."
In my latest National Post column I say the university groveling because some social worker in training objected to a plaque praising universities is a grotesque example of the PC revolution devouring its children.
“the remarkable way [Stanley] Hauerwas makes friends by arguing with people.”
Stephen H. Webb reviewing a Festschrift in Hauerwas' honor in First Things #160 (February 2006)
In my latest National Post column I remind readers that the purpose of a government-run school system is to instill state-approved values in young people, and we should support or oppose it on that basis with our eyes wide open.
“With G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc and Maurice Baring, I never differed—except in opinion.”
John Buchan, quoted by Roger Kimball, in The New Criterion September 2003
“only a quarrel can interrupt a good argument”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 3 #5 (March 2000)