“It is impossible to caricature that which caricatures itself.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Dec. 16, quoted in “Can’t You Take A Joke?” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)
“We have not any need to rebel against antiquity; we have to rebel against novelty.”
G.K. Chesterton “The Eternal Revolution” in Orthodoxy quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024)
“A fool and his money are soon partying.”
“Tagline from the Internet” quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 3 #5 (March 2000)
“One of the ancient Greek philosophers is credited with the statement: ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing well.’”
James Buchanan What Should Economists Do? but beware the attribution because my notes also contain “‘Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.’ - Earl of Chesterfield, 1746” [D.P. Diffiné, “The 1993 American Incentive System Almanac”] and “it was said of Nicholas Poussin, the painter, that the rule of his conduct was, that ‘whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well;’” [Samuel Smiles Self-Help]
“Finally, there is the great passage in ‘The Ethics of Elfland’ where Chesterton suggests that the sun may rise in response to God saying ‘Do it again,’ each day. One of our Chesterton Academy students responded to this passage in her senior capstone essay by saying, ‘This claim is supported by the fact that the sun refused to shine on the day men killed God.’”
Joshua Russell, “Headmaster at Chesterton Academy of the Sacred Heart in Peoria, Illinois” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #1 (September-October 2024)
“A joke can be so big that it breaks the roof of the stars.”
G.K. Chesterton in “The Dickens Period” in Charles Dickens, quoted in “Can’t You Take A Joke?” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)
“There’s no standard dress code for events any more, which always leaves me wondering: Is it better to overdress or underdress? At a film opening recently, two guys wearing baseball caps and chore jackets were the coolest people in the room. But the few times I’ve gone casual for an event, I’ve worried that I came off as impertinent at worst and out of place at best. Is there a right way to be underdressed? — Rachel, Brooklyn/ This is like ‘Hamlet,’ the S.N.L. version. You can just imagine a host wandering around a set crying, ‘to overdress or underdress, that is the question?’ as they beat their breast and rend their doublet. In truth, there are two camps here. On one side, there are those who hew to what could be called the school of Coco Chanel. The famous French designer believed it was always better to be underdressed and was fond of issuing such maxims as ‘Elegance is refusal’ and ‘Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.’ On the other side are the heirs of Iris (Apfel), the geriatric influencer who died earlier this year. She lived her life according to the conviction that more is more: more prints, more bracelets, more fun. Also in this camp is the designer Christian Siriano, who just made the purple pantsuit Oprah wore for her speech at the Democratic National Convention. ‘I truly feel that it is always better to be overdressed than underdressed,’ he said when I asked. ‘I’m a designer who loves the glamour of it all, so for me there really isn’t a right way to be underdressed unless you are actually laying by the pool or at the beach.’ Even then, he said, the look should include ‘a fabulous big hat and bag.’ As with most belief systems, however, the choice between over- or underdressing is not really about which option is objectively better or worse; it’s about what is right for you.”
New York Times August 26, 2024 [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/26/style/under-over-dressed-events.html] (and more from the bottomless navel of relativism)
“when people work at jobs that require the inhibition of imagination and creativity, any activity that permits those qualities - no matter how difficult or demanding - is experienced as play, not work.”
Lillian Breslow Rubin Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working-Class [re hobbies like tinkering with cars].