“How can we rush to catch a train which may not arrive for a few centuries?”
G.K. Chesterton “The Eternal Revolution” in Orthodoxy, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)
“Peggy Jones was mowing her lawn in Silsbee, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, on Tuesday when out of nowhere, a snake plummeted from the sky before landing on her arm and wrapping itself around her limb, she told Houston-based NBC affiliate KPRC-TV. As the snake tightened around her arm, a hawk suddenly swooped down from above and started attacking Jones as it tried to pry the serpent away from her. ‘The snake was squeezing so hard, and I was waving my arms in the air. And then, this hawk was swooping down clawing at my arm over and over,’ Jones, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, told KPRC. ‘I just kept saying, “Help me, Jesus. Help me, Jesus”,’ she said. She said the hawk came at her at least four times before it finally managed to get hold of the snake and fly away. Photos shared with KPRC appeared to show deep cuts and bruises on Jones’ bloodied right forearm following the attack. Jones said her husband took her to the emergency room after he heard her screaming and ran to her aid.... No snake bite was found, but Jones said she did find what appeared to be snake venom on her glasses, which were damaged during the incident. The Silsbee resident said people have told her she must be the unluckiest person alive to have both a snake and hawk attack her at the same time. However, she said: ‘I feel like the luckiest person alive to have survived this!’ She also said it wasn’t her first encounter with a snake — she already survived being bitten by a serpent a few years ago, KPRC reported.”
NBC August 9, 2023
“It is easy to maintain a situation while it is still secure;/ It is easy to deal with a situation before symptoms develop;/ It is easy to break a thing when it is yet brittle;/ It is easy to dissolve a thing when it is yet minute.”
Lao Tzu II.LXIV.152
“Vanitas vanitatum, which of us has his wish in this world, or, having it, is satisfied?”
G.K. Chesterton “Introduction to Thackeray”, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023)
“Literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul.”
G.K. Chesterton, in header quotation without further attribution in “Giving Cheese Its Due” by Jason West in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)
“If my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be certain even that I am right in altering those circumstances?”
G.K. Chesterton in Daily News December 1, 1906, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)
“Thanatos can assume any form it wishes; it can kill eros, the life drive, and then simulate it. Once thanatos does this to you, you are in big trouble; you suppose you are driven by eros but it is thanatos wearing a mask.”
Philip K. Dick VALIS
“If there are ghastly things to be faced the only thing we can do is make it glorious to face them.”
GKC in New Witness May 17, 1918 quoted in Gilbert magazine Vol. 9 #2 (Oct.-Dec. 2005)