“It often happens in history that things intensely small and local, or even backward and barbaric, defend themselves with great success against empires and combines, simply because they are too remote to have been overawed by mere cosmopolitan rumour and reputation. There are some fortunate communities that are too ignorant to be bullied, too superstitious to be frightened, too poor to be bribed, and too small to be destroyed. It is probably in these minute and secret places that the seed of civilization will be preserved for future ages, through the blundering anarchy of big things which seems to be coming upon us.”

Apparently an excerpt from “The Problems with Progress” in G.K.’s Weekly Vol. 7 March-September 1928, quoted in “An Introduction to the writings of G.K. Chesterton” by Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)

“The pessimist is commonly spoken of as the man in revolt. He is not. Firstly, because it requires some cheerfulness to continue in revolt, and secondly, because pessimism appeals to the weaker side of everybody, and the pessimist, therefore, drives as roaring a trade as the publican. The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade all the other people how good they are. It has been proved a hundred times over that if you really wish to enrage people and make them angry, even unto death, the right way to do it is to tell them that they are all the sons of God. Jesus Christ was crucified, it may be remembered, not because of anything he said about God, but on a charge of saying that a man could in three days pull down and rebuild the Temple. [Mt 26:61, Mk 14:58, Jn 2:19] Every one of the great revolutionists, from Isaiah to Shelley, have been optimists. They have been indignant, not about the badness of existence but about the slowness of men in realizing its goodness. The prophet who is stoned is not a brawler or a marplot. He is simply a rejected lover. He suffers from an unrequited attachment to things in general. (Introduction to The Defendant)”

“GKC on Scripture * Conducted by Peter Floriani” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022).

In my latest National Post column I say the tendency of Western feminists to side with Hamas, to the point of denying systematic rape during the Oct. 7 attack, reveals starkly that something is extremely wrong with an ideology that claims to be motivated by love and compassion.

“GKC: Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I say that to take away a poor man’s pot of beer is to take away a poor man’s personal liberty, it is very vital to note what is the usual or almost universal reply. People hardly ever do reply, for some reason or other, by saying that a man’s liberty consists of such and such things, but that beer is an exception that cannot be classed among them, for such and such reasons. What they almost invariably do say is something like this. ‘After all, what is liberty? Man must live as a member of a society, and must obey those laws which, etc., etc.’ In other words, they collapse into a complete confession that they are attacking all liberty and any liberty; that they do deny the very existence or the very possibility of liberty. In the very form of the answer they admit the full scope of the accusation against them. In trying to rebut the smaller accusation, they plead guilty to the larger one. This distinction is very important, as can be seen from any practical parallel. Suppose we wake up in the middle of the night and find that a neighbour has entered the house not by the front-door but by the skylight; we may suspect that he has come after the fine old family jewellery. We may be reassured if he can refer it to a really exceptional event; as that he fell on to the roof out of an aeroplane, or climbed on to the roof to escape from a mad dog. Short of the incredible, the stranger the story the better the excuse; for an extraordinary event requires an extraordinary excuse. But we shall hardly be reassured if he merely gazes at us in a dreamy and wistful fashion and says, ‘After all, what is property? Why should material objects be thus artificially attached, etc., etc.?’ We shall merely realize that his attitude allows of his taking the jewellery and everything else. Or if the neighbour approaches us carrying a large knife dripping with blood, we may be convinced by his story that he killed another neighbour in self-defence, that the quiet gentleman next door was really a homicidal maniac. We shall know that homicidal mania is exceptional and that we ourselves are so happy as not to suffer from it, and being free from the disease may be free from the danger. But it will not soothe us for the man with the gory knife to say softly and pensively, ‘After all, what is human life? Why should we cling to it? Brief at the best, sad at the brightest, it is itself but a disease from which, etc., etc.’ We shall perceive that the sceptic is in a mood not only to murder us but to massacre everybody in the street. Exactly the same effect which would be produced by the questions of ‘What is property?’ and ‘What is life?’ is produced by the question of ‘What is liberty?’ It leaves the questioner free to disregard any liberty, or in other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with saying ‘After all, what is liberty? Man is a member of, etc., etc.’”

“News With Views” compiled by Mark Pilon in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022) p. 37 [with the comment afterward “Justin Trudeau is rumored to be taking notes”].

“Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once, and I trust I never shall again. Somebody has called it ‘the atmosphere of hell;’ and I believe it is so.”

Harriet Jacobs “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” in Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ed., The Classic Slave Narratives

“Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.”

C.S. Lewis, quoted as standalone “WORDS OF WISDOM” in Epoch Times email teaser on April 9, 2023 [Easter Sunday, appropriately].

“Distrust every poet who says to you, ‘I do not know where this came from.’ The proper answer is, ‘We none of us know where it comes from, but you have got to know where it is going to.’ You have got to have an image to be evoked before the end; and to work up to that from the beginning. In that sense, all good poetry is written backwards. That is exactly the difference between the inspired poet and the inspiring poet. The bad, or inspired, poet, lets the first lines dictate the last lines. The good, or inspiring, poet, lets the last lines dictate the first.”

G.K. Chesterton in New York American November 19, 1932, quoted in “Chesterton’s Mail Bag” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)

“When the Puritans say they are democrats, they mean that they really have a universal desire to prevent ordinary people from doing ordinary things.”

G.K. Chesterton in English Life March 1924, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #3 (1/2/2022)