"The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from this is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being."

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News October 21, 1905, quoted in Dale Ahlquist and Peter Floriani, Chesterton University Student Handbook

In my latest National Post column I say, from hearing a series of outstanding talks at Moses Znaimer's ideacity conference, that the future is here now.

Cardus' Faith in Canada 150 venture includes The Ross and Davis Mitchell Prize for Faith and Writing. There's a total of $25,000 in prize money, with $10,000 for first place in both the poetry and short story categories. So if it sounds like you, submit your entry or entries by June 30. (The rules and so forth are on this page and the link to submit is at the bottom.)

"I have always felt myself to be a stranger here on earth, aware that our home is elsewhere."

Malcolm Muggeridge in 1988, quoted in Joseph Pearce Literary Converts

"the one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God’s paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle – and not lose it."

G.K. Chesterton "Time’s Abstract and Brief Chronicle" according to Dale Ahlquist. It was paraphrased by Kara Kelley in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #5 (March-April 2005) as "The most romantic thing in the world is to fight a losing battle, and not lose." Which is almost the only case I know of where somebody rephrased Chesterton and may have improved him.

"All purposeful human action is self-interested, in the crucial sense that it aims at goals accepted by the individual, using means evaluated by the individual. Greed or selfishness, by contrast, is a matter of claiming for the self more than is due."

Paul Heyne "The Concept of Economic Justice in Religious Discussion"

"Thus we return again to Dostoyevsky’s terrifying little truism: If there is no God, everything is permissible.... The atheist argues: 'If there were a God, how could there be injustice?' To which Pascal replies: 'If there is injustice, there must be true justice for it to be relative to and a defect of; and this true justice is not found on Earth or in man, therefore it must exist in Heaven and God.' Either there or nowhere; and if nowhere, then 'everything is permissible.' But not everything is permissible. Therefore there must be a God." Peter Kreeft Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined & Explained

"Thank heaven, I am bringing to at least one human being the news that is at bottom the only good news to any son of Adam. Your life has not been useless." Adam Wayne to Turnbull, the toy-shop keeper, in G.K. Chesterton The Napoleon of Notting Hill