“An heir finds the deeds to his house. Will he say, perhaps, that they are false, and not bother to examine them?”
Peter Kreeft Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined & Explained
“My own conclusion, after interviewing him at length one spring afternoon back in 1967, was that while [then-Social Credit leader R.N.] Thompson might not be anti-Semitic, he certainly was anti-semantic.”
Peter C. Newman in Maclean’s April 1, 1996
“An acquaintance, hearing someone speculate that some of the advocates of defunding the police may be less than transparent about their motives, asked, ‘Isn’t that just a conspiracy theory?’ Another fellow I spoke with reacted to someone’s suggestion that not all sexual acts are morally equivalent by demanding, ‘Isn’t that just homophobia?’ And a student responded to the reasoning of a religious author by sneering, ‘Isn’t that just a religious argument?’ What’s I find interesting is that although all three persons thought they were heading off fallacies, actually all three were committing them. The kinds they committed were fallacies of distraction. Each one deflected the question instead of considering it, then considered the deflection a rebuttal. My acquaintance didn’t inquire into whether the people in question really were concealing their motives – much less whether someone who suggests concealment is necessarily suggesting cooperation in the concealment – much less whether anyone ever does conceal his motives – much less whether anyone ever does cooperate in the act – much less whether that could have been happening in the case at hand. The second fellow didn’t consider whether the motive for making a suggestion automatically disqualifies it – much less whether the only possible motive for making moral distinctions among sexual acts is a pathological fear or ‘phobia’ – much less whether all such acts really are morally equivalent. And the student didn’t reflect upon whether the religious writer’s argument really was premised on his faith – much less whether an argument might be valid even if it were premised on faith – much less whether the argument at hand was valid. I sometimes hear that people need more training in formal inference. Maybe so. But we have a much greater need to learn about ‘informal’ fallacies, errors that occur not because we violate the rules of inference but because we are distracted from the point we are discussing.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” December 9 2021
Speaking of the fatuous appeal of radicalism to the young “I must include myself, since I was a young Marxist.” But “What forced me to change my mind [away from radicalism] was discovering over the years that things were even worse than I thought. People did awful things, not just here but all around the world, not just now but across thousands of years of history…. History was especially disillusioning. It showed that some of my pet ideas had already been tried, and had blown up in people’s faces.”
Thomas Sowell Is Reality Optional?
“That [President George W. Bush saying price controls wouldn’t solve California’s energy problems], sniffed last Sunday’s New York Times, was just ‘Econ 101.’ What the President needed was a lesson in Econ 90210, presented by the Department of Sarah Polley-Sci.”
Peter Foster in National Post June 8, 2001
“I am never bored anywhere: being bored is an insult to oneself.”
Jules Renard quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail June 13, 2008
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Winston Churchill again, and again from Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html
“I deny that biology can destroy the sense of truth, which alone can even desire biology. No truth which I find can deny that I am seeking the truth. My mind cannot find anything which denies my mind.”
G.K. Chesterton in Daily News November 7, 1908, quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 # 4 March-April 2022