“Although the terms ‘skepticism’ and ‘relativism’ are usually used interchangeably, skepticism is in a sense the exact opposite of relativism, for skepticism says that no one has the truth, while relativism says that everyone has it, for truth is only ‘my truth’ or ‘your truth.’ Skepticism denies truth; relativism denies error.”

Dale Ahlquist reviewing a new edition of Peter Kreeft’s Socrates’ Children, an introduction to what Kreeft considers the 100 most important philosophers ever, in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)

“This book appears as the world lumberingly and indecisively turns back from the abysses which we were lucky to escape, and which still yawn. Its theme is that the main responsibility for the century’s disasters lies not so much in the problems as in the solutions, not in impersonal forces but in human beings, thinking certain thoughts and as a result performing certain actions.”

Start of “Preface” in Robert Conquest Reflections on a Ravaged Century

“I believe most of the great social reforms of our time will remain in history as Follies.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News June 3, 1919, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023)

“His cynical grin had about it the grin of death; he grinned like a triumphant skull.”

Philip K. Dick VALIS [re the character Kevin]

“‘The original Latin word [from which distraction is derived] does not mean relaxation; it means being torn asunder as by wild horses. The original Greek word, which corresponds to it, is used in the text which says that Judas burst asunder in the midst.’”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News July 16, 1910, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 6 #3 (December 2002)

“It will be a comfort to me all my life to know that the scientist and the materialist have not the last word: that Darwin and [Herbert] Spencer undermining ancestral beliefs stand themselves on a foundation of sand; of gigantic assumptions and irreconcilable contradictions an inch below the surface”.

C.S. Lewis to “Albert” on accepting an English fellowship and abandoning philosophy with some relief as relentlessly depressing skepticism, quoted in Harry Lee Poe The Making of C.S. Lewis

“Colin O’Scopie, proctologist”

Me Feb. 13, 2024 [invented not a real person].

In the Western Standard, on behalf of the Aristotle Foundation, I took the Toronto Star to task (last week - I’m late posting it) for a news story riddled with errors of fact and misleading interpretations on the subject of a Queen’s Park statue of Sir John A. Macdonald put in a rat-infested memory hole.