“There is an important distinction in life, including work life, between things you want to have done and things you want to be doing.”
Another of mine, from Feb. 12, 1988
“Already, by the time that Anselm died in 1109, Latin Christendom had been set upon a course so distinctive that what today we term ‘the West’ is less its heir than its continuation…. Today, at a time of seismic geopolitical realignment, when our values are proving to be not nearly as universal as some of us had assumed them to be, the need to recognize just how culturally contingent they are is more pressing than ever. To live in a western country is to live in a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions. This is no less true for Jews or Muslims than it is for Catholics or Protestants. Two thousand years on from the birth of Christ, it does not require a belief that he rose from the dead to be stamped by the formidable – indeed the inescapable – influence of Christianity. Whether it be the conviction that the workings of conscience are the surest determinants of good law, or that Church and state exist as distinct entities, or that polygamy is unacceptable, its trace elements are to be found everywhere in the West…. The West, increasingly empty though the pews may be, remains firmly moored to its Christian past.”
Author’s “Preface” in Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
“Growing your own tomatoes is the best way to devote 3 months of your life to saving $2.17”
Emailed by a friend without attribution September 20, 2024
“But what the [Christmas 1914 World War I] truce revealed, by its unofficial and spontaneous nature, was how resilient certain attitudes and values were. Despite the slaughter of the early months, it was the subsequent war that began profoundly to alter those values and to hasten and spread in the west the drift to narcissism and fantasy that had been characteristic of the avant-garde and large segments of the German population before the war.”
Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era
In my latest Epoch Times column I say instead of worrying about polls asking whether we think the decline in trust might mysteriously reverse itself, we should concentrate on reversing it by making sure we’re trustworthy. I know it sounds weird but it just might work.
“Be honest, if people heard what you are thinking half of the time, you would either be in jail or a mental hospital.”
Emailed by a friend without attribution Sept. 21, 2024 [he didn't mean me personally in contrast to everyone else, I hasten to add].
“the annoyed feeling which people have on seeing a job being badly done.”
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
“Whenever a moral issue is raised, the reflex of many people is to spout, ‘Who is to say what is right or wrong?’ This is the wrong question. The right question isn’t ‘Who is to say?' but 'How can we find out?’”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” July 1, 2024 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/the-moon-is-made-of-cheese]