"the Furies of conscience do not wait upon our assumptions. One who admits the Furies but denies the God who appointed them – who supposes that there can be a law without a lawgiver – must suppose that forgiveness is both necessary and impossible. That which is not personal cannot forgive; morality 'by itself' has a heart of rock."
J. Budziszewski in First Things June/July 2002
"Truth is not only stranger, but much more blood-curdling than fiction."
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Dec. 31 1921, quoted in “Chesterton Rewrites more of the Classic Lines” in Gilbert Magazine July-August 20077-8/07 p. 37
"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions."
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News January 13, 1906, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 #7
"the difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. The sacred fire through which Moshe (Moses) experienced the presence of God on Mount Horeb did not annihilate the bush from which it arose... Passion is divine fire: it enlivens and makes holy; it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it’s not ego-drive; addiction is self-centred."
Gabor Maté In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
In my latest National Post column I ponder the mystery of Donald Trump's enduring appeal to people who should know better... and those who drive them to it.
"people who think of the All, and only of the All, have, as far as I have seen, a tendency to become like the worshippers of a tadpole. They are worshipping something heartless, brainless, bodyless, something that is everything and nothing, something that has not the power of giving anyone that shock of reality which we can get from a woman’s face or a sting of pain. They do not love their god as monks love Christ; they do not fear him as savages fear Mumbo-Jumbo. And out of them comes that horrible universalism, that freezing and theoretic philanthropy which is the worst of the modern evils."
G.K. Chesterton in Daily News March 24, 1904, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 7 #5 (March 2004)
“Now, observant Jews and Muslims have strict laws governing their diets, but Christians generally do not. Yet here we were, discovering a hidden connection between fidelity to our religion’s demands and the kind of food we ate. As we came to see in time, the separation between our political and moral convictions and the lifestyle choices we made was by and large an illusion. Just as ideas have consequences, so do actions.”
Rod Dreher Crunchy Cons (on discovering that a healthier diet made Catholic family planning work better by making his wife's cycle more normal)
"I want to taste sugar; I don’t want to be sugar."
"Ramakrishna… in one of his more monotheistic moods" quoted in Huston Smith Why Religion Matters