“At that moment, and only for that moment, everything fitted into place. Every tendency in himself, in societies; the past and the future; all he had ever seen or thought or felt or believed, sorted itself out. It was a vision of Good and Evil. Heaven and Hell. Life and death. There were two alternatives; and he had to choose. He chose.”
Malcolm Muggeridge "Winter in Moscow" (1934), in Ian Hunter, ed., The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge.
"The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, 'The kingdom of heaven is within you.'"
G.K. Chesterton, “The Spirit of America,” in What I Saw in America, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 7 #8 (July-August 2004)
"I allow that, if no Supreme Ruler exists, wise to form and potent to enforce the moral law, there is no sanction to any contract, virtual or even actual, against the will of prevalent power. On that hypothesis let any set of men be strong enough to set their duties at defiance, and they cease to be duties any longer.”
Edmund Burke An Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs
"It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life…"
St. Augustine The City of God (speaking of "evil men")
"it is axiomatic that one cannot have a duty to do something that cannot be done."
George Will in Washington Post August 17, 2003, quoted in Natan Sharansky with Ron Dermer The Case for Democracy
In my latest National Post column I say liberal reactions to actual diversity tend to be unfavourable, suggesting that their theoretical devotion to it simply confuses debate.
“Have they [the philosophers] found the cure for our ills? Is it curing man’s presumption to set him up as God’s equal?”
Blaise Pascal Pensées
"On his deathbed, Chesterton proclaimed: 'The issue is now quite clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.'"
Kevin O’Reilly in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #2 (October-November 2001)