“People say they fear public speaking almost as much as death (which raises the question why there aren’t more horror movies with names like ‘Podium’ and ‘Dry Mouth 2’).”
Andrew Palmer “Bartleby columnist” in The Economist September 13, 2025
“A medley of spiteful mutants united behind a Leninist project can only be a wholly destructive force, and those of us who cleave to notions of Being with more permanence feel alienated and betrayed by our recently-elevated bad masters. We should not be surprised that they have the deculturalizing effect of rampaging orcs. They are barbarians, and as Chesterton said, the barbarian creates only by accident. Everything else they do is destruction.”
Christopher Jolliffe “The Attack on ANZAC Day” in Dorchester Review #32 (Vol. 15 #2 Summer 2025)
“You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but it isn’t necessary. A majority will do.”
“SOMEBODY” quoted in “Other Suspects – V” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)
“Only a fool fights in a burning house.”
A Klingon Proverb cited by Kang in Star Trek: The Original Series "Day of the Dove"
“One who excels in traveling leaves no wheel tracks;/ One who excels in speech makes no slips;/ One who excels in reckoning uses no counting rods;/ One who excels in shutting uses no bolts yet what he has shut cannot be opened;/ One who excels in tying uses no cords yet what he has tied cannot be undone.”
Lao Tzu I.XXVII.60
“The Hero does not regard the forest in which the dragon lurks as evil. Nor do I. I find that the world is on the whole a very jolly place, with inns and good fellowship. But try to justify the distinction: the good forest, the evil dragon; and you must have a philosophy.”
G.K. Chesterton in an interview with W.R. Titterton, in Titterton’s GKC: A Portrait (1936), the first Chesterton biography, reprinted in part at least in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)
“The division now is between those who want Western Civilization to continue and those who don’t... this is the moment when the West will either pull itself together or go over the edge of the cultural cliff.”
Melanie Phillips in The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West – and Why Only They Can Save It, quoted by Chuck Chalberg reviewing the book in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)
“If you leave your children a world where you never stood up, they’ll inherit one where they can’t.”
Emailed as an image and without attribution by a friend Sept. 8, 2025