“Monaco was, in Somerset Maugham’s unimprovable summation, ‘a sunny place for shady people’”.
The reference is to when Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier there, in Mark Steyn’s obituary of Prince Rainier in The Atlantic Monthly July-August 2005
“The true modern cowardice is that no one has the courage to pronounce truisms. Consequently the chief evil of all modern argument is that it will not begin, like Euclid, with the things that are quite obvious; Euclid is dull during the first four or five pages; not before the third book does he begin to become even feebly brilliant. In short, the characteristic modern controversy has this defect, that those partaking in it have not the courage to be dull, have not the courage to state the things which are only evident to some.”
G.K. Chesterton in the Morning Post Oct. 18, 1906, quoted in “Chesterton For Today” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)
“Current fashion among history teachers affirms, in the teeth of the evidence, that individuals count for little; that history’s iron laws are all but unaffected by them.”
The Making of Tyrants by Alan Bullock, quoted in The Economist July 20, 1991
“Our journalised world does not regard words as part of any connected argument, but as disconnected emotional epithets thrown at some object; the only question being whether it is an object of hatred or idolatry, and whether the things thrown are bombs or bouquets. Nobody thinks that anybody might possibly have another object, the object called truth, and try to reach it by thinking instead of throwing things.”
G.K. Chesterton quoted in Dale Ahlquist “Why is America not Normal? G.K.’s Weekly, Volume 13 March 14, 1031 – September 5, 1931” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)
“Irresolute men are sometimes very persistent in their undertakings, because if they gave up their design they would have to make a second resolution.”
“Leopardi” quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 18, 2007
“the secret of wisdom is detachment without withdrawal.”
Northrop Frye The Great Code [describing the attitude of the author of Ecclesiastes].
“It’s all fun and games until somebody loses a soul.”
One of mine from Nov. 3, 2023 [inspired by a news story about the trendiness of Satanism in popular culture].
“Maybe if we start telling people their brain is an app, they’ll want to use it.”
Comment by “mikeorclem” on the Climate Discussion Nexus “Hottest Ever Except Not” video.