“Our plans miscarry because we have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”
Seneca, quoted by a writer whose name I did not record in National Review July 11, 1994
“The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost.”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023) – the context was a long-ago crisis in the affairs of the famous jeweler Tiffany’s.
“The reason we have sexual harassment is that we do not believe in chastity. In the end, the only way to discourage unwanted advances is to condemn immoral ones. To discredit sexual harassment, one must discredit sexual sin.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“There is nothing wrong with old ideas, so long as they are true. And there is nothing admirable about new ones, if they aren’t.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“For a delight in bustling about is not industry – it is only the restless energy of a hunted mind.”
Seneca Letter III
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laserlike focus.”
Bruce Lee, quoted by Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html)
“I RECEIVED A LITTLE WHILE AGO a letter to which no name or address was attached, which touched me beyond expression. A great deal of it was too personal to treat of here, and for this reason especially I regret the concealment of its origin. But the more generally discussable part concerned itself chiefly with a query as to my meaning when I said in this paper something to this effect: ‘No one can be miserable who has known anything worth being miserable about.’ The remark was written as remarks in daily papers ought, in my opinion, to be written, in a wild moment; but it happens, nevertheless, to be more or less true. What I meant was that our attitude towards existence, if we have suffered deprivation, must always be conditioned by the fact that deprivation implies that existence has given us something of immense value. To say that we have lost in the lottery of existence is to say that we have gained: for existence gives us our money beforehand. It is quite impossible to imagine ourselves as really calling, as Huxley expressed it, the Cosmos to the bar.”
G.K. Chesterton “The Philosophy of Gratitude” reprinted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023) p. 5 [including start].
“Any fool can have an opinion…”
Neil Postman Building a Bridge to the 18th Century