“I believe most of the great social reforms of our time will remain in history as Follies.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News June 3, 1919, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023)
“His cynical grin had about it the grin of death; he grinned like a triumphant skull.”
Philip K. Dick VALIS [re the character Kevin]
“‘The original Latin word [from which distraction is derived] does not mean relaxation; it means being torn asunder as by wild horses. The original Greek word, which corresponds to it, is used in the text which says that Judas burst asunder in the midst.’”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News July 16, 1910, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 6 #3 (December 2002)
“It will be a comfort to me all my life to know that the scientist and the materialist have not the last word: that Darwin and [Herbert] Spencer undermining ancestral beliefs stand themselves on a foundation of sand; of gigantic assumptions and irreconcilable contradictions an inch below the surface”.
C.S. Lewis to “Albert” on accepting an English fellowship and abandoning philosophy with some relief as relentlessly depressing skepticism, quoted in Harry Lee Poe The Making of C.S. Lewis
In my latest Epoch Times column I argue that optimism is a psychological condition and generally fatuous, while hope is a theological virtue, in public affairs as in life more generally.
The notoriously absentminded G.K. Chesterton “frequently forgot to keep appointments and often needed to write an apology to the person he stood up. One time, however, he arrived punctually to see his publisher (to the publisher’s astonishment). But he then handed the man a note containing an explanation of why he couldn’t be there.”
Eric J. Scheske in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #8 (July/August 2002)
“any religion that does not say that God is hidden is not true, and any religion which does not explain why does not instruct. Ours does both.”
Pascal Pensées
“One of the most famous English-language commentators in the 20th century, Malcolm Muggeridge, famously referred to ‘the great liberal death wish.’ In Canada, we could correctly call it the great Liberal death wish.”
Conrad Black in National Post Feb. 10, 2024 [roasting Justin Trudeau].