Words Worth Noting - September 21, 2023

“The point is, however, that the West [in the Cold War] got the ‘big thing’ right and the lesser matters right enough. Many of history’s losers, not excluding Nazi Germany and the USSR, failed to get the really big things right although they did perform some ill chosen missions extremely well. If one had to choose, it would be preferable to pursue the correct policy inelegantly than the incorrect policy elegantly.”

Colin S. Gray Canadians in a Dangerous World

Words Worth Noting - September 20, 2023

“Men say indignantly that we ought not to be worrying about creeds: we ought to be worrying about education. They might as well say that we must not worry about cats, because we ought to be worrying about kittens. A kitten only means the first stage of a cat. Education only means the first stage of some creed, some view of life.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Oct. 3, 1908, quoted in standalone boxed quotations headed “Education” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #2 (Nov.-Dec. 2021)

Words Worth Noting - September 17, 2023

“The trouble with Catholics is that they like to have things proved; wherein they differ from a more advanced and enlightened world. Alone among modern people, they do not think that a thing being talked about is the same as its being proved.”

G.K. Chesterton in New Witness April 13, 1923, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #1 (Sept.-Oct. 2022)