“It must be remembered that, though concord is in itself better than discord, discord may indicate a better state of things than is indicated by concord. Calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay The History of England
“The chief aim of order is to give room for good things to run wild.”
G.K. Chesterton quoted as header quotation by Fr. Robert Wild in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #5 (May/June 2022)
“The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary people find no difference between men.”
Pascal Pensées
“‘man will live forevermore because of Christmas day,’ as Harry Belafonte put it in those more confident times a mere 40 years ago…”
Mark Steyn in National Post December 24, 1999 [so 60 years ago now and the cultural and intellectual situation has not improved]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I render “We Three Kings” if they were bearing Grit Red, Tory Blue and Dipper Orange… and prefer the original.
“The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said that the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.”
Richard John Neuhaus in First Things March 2000
In my latest National Post column, I write to Santa listing things I could really do without this year… and they all come from the government.
“Liberty is traditional and conservative; it remembers its legends and its heroes. But tyranny is always young and seemingly innocent, and asks us to forget the past.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News December 30, 1911, quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #5 (May/June 2022)