“Benevolence is the heart of man, and rightness his road. Sad it is indeed when a man gives up the right road… and allows his heart to stray without enough sense to go after it.”
Mencius in Mencius
“If all decorum, discipline, and subordination are to be destroyed, and universal Pyrrhonism, anarchy, and insecurity of property are to be introduced, nations will soon wish their books in ashes, seek for darkness and ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, as blessings, and follow the standard of the first mad despot, who, with the enthusiasm of another Mahomet, will endeavor to obtain them.”
John Adams, quoted in Russell Kirk The Conservative Mind
“I have only one fault, namely, that I am evil.”
Another “Needhamism” from the then-just-deceased columnist Richard J. Needham, quoted by Malcolm MacLeod of St. John’s in letter to the Globe & Mail July 30, 1996
“What affects men sharply about a foreign nation is not so much finding or not finding familiar things; it is rather not finding them in the familiar place.”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 No. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 2000)
“Whosoever is out of patience is out of possession of his mind, body and soul.”
Sir Francis Bacon, quoted in the “Federalist Patriot” No. 04-34 25 August 2004 from federalist.com
“It is quite easy to give people a second nature, if you catch them early enough. There is no belief, however grotesque and even villainous, that cannot be made a part of human nature if it is inculcated in childhood and not contradicted in the child’s hearing.”
George Bernard Shaw Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism (he cites foot-binding, ritual suicide when the king dies and suttee).
In my latest National Post column I say don’t confuse malevolent stupidity with conspiracy.
“We try to make virtues out of the faults we have no wish to correct.”
Francois, duc de La Rouchefoucauld, quoted on https://www.hound-dog-media.com