“The man who said, ‘Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed,’ put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth is, ‘Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.’”
G.K. Chesterton discussing George Bernard Shaw in Heretics, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #1 (Sept. 2001)
“Attempts must be made to modify the institutions (legal, political, social, economic) with the objective of matching these more closely with the empirical realities of man’s moral limitations.”
James Buchanan What Should Economists Do?
“in a world without God, there is not room enough for a man.”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Joyce Little in an interview in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 2 #7 (June 1999)
In my latest National Post column I say John Le Carré’s novels were morally rotten and dangerous in practice.
“We must take human nature as we find it. Perfection falls not to the share of mortals.”
George Washington to John Jay August 8, 1786, in W.B. Allen Washington, George. A Collection.
“We need metaphors of magic and monsters in order to understand the human condition.”
Stephen Donaldson, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 25, 2007 [to which I add “Yes, but why?”]
“In their political arrangements, men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time. With regard to futurity, we are to treat it like a ward. We are not so to attempt an improvement of his fortune as to put the capital of his estate at risk.”
Edmund Burke An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs
“Only the concept of eternity could explain the ambiguity between a loving God and the Holocaust. For if life does not end with the grave, we should pity the prison guard, not his victim.”
Edward F. Halpin who “was at Buchenwald with Patton’s Third Army”, quoted by Richard John Neuhaus in First Things March 2001