“... the whole way of life to which men are attached and the large ideas to which they own allegiance.”
Walt Rostow (in one of his books but my bibliographic note to self is incomprehensible)
“Martin Amis, who was harshly criticized in America Alone but gave it a positive review, said of the style: ‘Mark Steyn is an oddity: his thoughts and themes are sane and serious – but he writes like a maniac.’”
Wikipedia entry on Mark Steyn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Steyn] at least as of Feb. 9, 2024
In my latest Epoch Times column I argue that optimism is a psychological condition and generally fatuous, while hope is a theological virtue, in public affairs as in life more generally.
She’s deploring the reflex (when someone fails to say “Thank You” when you hold a door) of feeling “exasperated – but, crucially, not surprised…. ‘Typical!’ you say. As Kate Fox points out, ‘Typical!’ is one of our default modes… The ‘Typical!’ response is actually quite self-flattering, of course. It suggests that fate can never wrong-foot us because we are always prepared for the worst or most unlikely event. ‘So then my sister-in-law had a sex change and went off to live in Krakatoa. Typical!’ we exclaim. ‘So then they started bombing Baghdad. Typical!’ ‘The cat turned out to be a reincarnation of a seventh-century Chinese prophet. Typical!’”
Lynne Truss Talk to the Hand
The notoriously absentminded G.K. Chesterton “frequently forgot to keep appointments and often needed to write an apology to the person he stood up. One time, however, he arrived punctually to see his publisher (to the publisher’s astonishment). But he then handed the man a note containing an explanation of why he couldn’t be there.”
Eric J. Scheske in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #8 (July/August 2002)
“any religion that does not say that God is hidden is not true, and any religion which does not explain why does not instruct. Ours does both.”
Pascal Pensées
“Quote of the Day: ‘Nothing says poor workmanship like wrinkled duct tape.’”
Red Green in Ottawa Sun October 24, 1999
On QR Calgary 770 AM radio with Rob Breakenridge, on behalf of the Aristotle Foundation, I defended the surprising decision by the Calgary Board of Education not to peel the name of our first and founding Prime Minister off a local school and fling it down the memory hole.