“If we come upon a dead man, we start back in horror. Are we not to start with any generous emotion when we come upon a living man, that far greater mystery? Are we to have any gratitude for the positive miracles of life? We thank a man for passing the mustard; is there indeed nothing that we can thank for the man who passes it?”

G.K. Chesterton in “The Experiment of Mr. Buck” in The Napoleon of Notting Hill, quoted in “Why Do You Ask Me Rhetorical Questions? – 5” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #1 (Sept.-Oct. 2023)

“If you know too much, you cannot move.”

A Korean proverb according to someone called Kee though the rest of my bibliographic note to self is incomprehensible.

“dogma: the serious satisfaction of the mind. Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.”

G.K. Chesterton, “The Victorian Compromise,” in The Victorian Age in Literature, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 6 #3 (Dec. 2002)

“a noodle shop between two skyscrapers.”

The self-deprecating self-assessment of incoming Japanese Prime Minister Keizō Obuchi, quoted in Ottawa Citizen July 25, 1998 [and he duly died after less than two undistinguished years in office... but it’s not obvious that his predecessor or successor were skyscrapers either].

“If the dogmas are true, what can you do but try to get men to agree with them?”

G.K. Chesterton in Daily News Feb. 13, 1906, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023)

“Go back to the idea of government by ideas.”

G.K. Chesterton in “The Revolt Against Ideas,” in The Thing, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 10 #6 (4-5/07)

“It’s hard to imagine how the human race could have survived if women had been as antisocial and unfriendly and unpleasant as men can be, and as the most creative men often are.”

Anthony Esolen in No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men, quoted in a review by Chuck Chalberg in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 2 (Nov.-Dec. 2022)

In my latest National Post column I observe that Chrystia Freeland shouldn’t be praised for quitting on principle, she was fired and then faked it.