“It can hardly be proposed that they [humans] should learn a purer religion from the Aztecs or sit at the feet of the Incas of Peru. All the rest of the world was a welter of barbarism. It is essential to recognise that the Roman Empire was recognised as the highest achievement of the human race; and also as the broadest. A dreadful secret seemed to be written as in obscure hieroglyphics across those mighty works of marble and stone, those colossal amphitheatres and aqueducts. Man could do no more. For it was not the message blazed on the Babylonian wall, that one king was found wanting or his one kingdom given to a stranger. It was no such good news as the news of invasion and conquest. There was nothing left that could conquer Rome; but there was also nothing left that could improve it. It was the strongest thing that was growing weak. It was the best thing that was going to the bad.”

G.K. Chesterton in “The Strangest Story in the World” in The Everlasting Man quoted in “The Book of the Prophet Daniel” in “GKC on Scripture * Conducted by Peter Floriani” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)

In a talk to the Augustine College Summer Seminar I argued that the American Revolution brought liberty and prosperity because it looked back to the solid foundations of Magna Carta, Christianity and the Western tradition, while the French Revolution brought misery and death because it looked forward to a utopian future unconstrained by the past.

“As Justice Jamie Campbell once wrote, ‘The Charter is not a blueprint for moral conformity. Its purpose is to protect the citizen from the power of the state, not to enforce compliance by citizens or private institutions with the moral judgements of the state.’ Trinity Western University v. Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, 2015 NSSC25, at para. 10. Sadly, this clear thinking was not followed by a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada in a similar case, where seven of nine judges ruled against Trinity Western University’s proposed Christian law school due to a perception the law school would discriminate against non-Christians.”

André Schutten and Michael Wagner, A Christian Citizenship Guide 2nd edition

“It is only from a normal standpoint that all the nonsense of the world takes on something of the wild interest of wonderland.”

G.K. Chesterton’s Introduction to Fancies vs Fads quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #2 (Nov.-Dec. 2021)

“What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn’t there be a quarrel about a word? If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning by moving your ears?”

G.K. Chesterton “The Peacemaker” in The Ball and the Cross, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)

“Cromwell was about to ravage the whole of Christendom; the royal family was lost and his own set for ever in power, but for a little grain of sand getting into his bladder. Even Rome was about to tremble beneath him. But, with this bit of gravel once there, he died, his family fell into disgrace, peace reigned and the king was restored.”

Pascal Pensées

“The greatest blessings we receive in life are undeserved. For example, I didn’t do anything to deserve good parents. On the other hand, it is not unjust for a person to have such a blessing, and it is not an act of justice to try to erase it. What justice requires is gratitude for blessings received. What charity requires is trying to act in a way that blessings of the same kind may be more widely enjoyed.”

J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]

“WHEN I WAS IN WARSAW I had occasion to pass and re-pass the statue of Copernicus… He sits there with his astronomical globe, looking down the main thoroughfare of the newly-liberated capital of his country… He has always been one of the great glories of Poland; though I am aware that the German professors have attempted to prove that he was really a German. But as they have done the same for Virgil, Dante, and the Twelve Apostles, I am inclined to think tradition has more of the sobriety of truth.”

G.K. Chesterton “On Three Names” reprinted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)