“Philosophy has been defined as the study of ultimate reality and of the general causes and principles of things, with a particular reference to the human being, and to the principles and ends of human conduct.”
David Knowles The Evolution of Medieval Thought [1st sentence of book not counting Preface]
“The inclination here was to regard the war as a form of art, as a superior representation of life: only when mankind recognized that salvation lay in aesthetic values, in the symbolism of life and death, and not in sterile social norms, would the horror and sadness have meaning and be overcome. As evocation, as an instrument of change, the war had a positive purpose – that was the judgment of many artists, at least early on. The most radical artistic response to the war came from a group of people who made a complete break with traditional loyalties and gathered in neutral Zürich in 1915 to found there the Dada idea – if one can speak of this nihilistic manifestation as an idea. The cohort had an international flavor but its core was German.”
Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era
“The BBC reports that the North Hertfordshire Museum will now refer to Roman emperor Elagabalus with the female pronounces of she and her.”
Mark Pilon in “News with Views” “Compiled by Mark Pilon” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #4 (March/April 2025)
“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also are like unto him.” “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.”
Proverbs XXVI:4 and 5 [King James Version]
“it isn’t oratory that is wanted in this racket. The William Jennings Bryan stunt languishes in wartime.”
John Blenkiron in John Buchan Greenmantle
“At one time, I was arrogant enough to believe I had an intellectual conversion to the Catholic faith. But, fundamentally, it was because God loves me, as he loves us all, and gave me the grace to convert. I only cooperated in his grace from time to time.”
Jeff Miller in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)
“Such, in brief, is the Platonic doctrine of Forms or Ideas, but this summary can give no impression of the depths and riches of Plato’s thought and in particular takes no account of another and a very important aspect in which an emotional, one had almost said a mystical, value is found in the striving of the human soul towards an attainment of the perfection seen in the Form, such as that of Beauty.”
David Knowles The Evolution of Medieval Thought [and by no means his only use of the surely peak-pomposity phrase “one had almost said”]
“When I was growing up, I had no idea what Black Sabbath was, but you better believe I knew about Ozzy Osbourne. That’s because he and his family were a part of mine. In the early 2000s, around when my dad started calling the TV the ‘idiot box,’ the early reality show The Osbournes was often on in our den. Watching that show was like peering into a portal into an alternate universe where dads had tattoos and daughters might decide to give themselves a pink mohawk on a Tuesday morning before school. Dinner guests might include Courtney Love or Marilyn Manson. The only rule in the Osbourne house was: No rules allowed.”
Suzy Weiss on The Free Press July 26, 2025 [but of course “No rules allowed” is a rule, if a feebly self-annihilating one].