“A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense has really become very uncommon. Straightforward ideas appear strange and unfamiliar, and any thought that does not follow the conventional curve or twist, is supposed to be a sort of joke.”
G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly November 2, 1933 quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say that now that Trump has somehow forced our chattering classes to realize we should promote prosperity and resilience through markets not impoverish and divide ourselves with trendy schemes for yet more state intervention, the easy first steps are sweeping away interprovincial trade barriers, agricultural marketing schemes and protectionism in the banking, airline and telecommunications sector, and radically simplifying the tax code.
“Why is it that so many people only want to make a case for the negative badness, not only of a bad thing, but of all things as being bad? The present generation has had more pleasure and enjoyment than any previous generation. Is that the right way of stating the riddle? Or is that the answer?”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News February 18, 1933, quoted in “Why Do You Keep Asking Me Rhetorical Questions?” in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #5 (May/June 2024)
“Children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.”
G.K. Chesterton quoted without further attribution in an illustrated panel in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #5 (May/June 2024)
“Though steeped in Chesterton, Father Boyd was not a rollicking figure. Tall and thin, and giving the initial impression of being almost dour, he would provide a pleasant shock when he told a joke, and, like Chesterton, laugh at it himself. He had an awkward and stuttering style of speaking, yet he would draw you in with profound thinking, dropping down thought-provoking lines in the manner of the man he was invoking. For example: ‘Chesterton never writes about religion so much as when he is writing about something else.’ As if to personally confirm that insight, Chesterton himself says: ‘Philosophy is not expressed when people are talking about philosophy, but when they are talking about anything else.’”
Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024) [Father Boyd is Ian Boyd, CSB, who just passed away]
“Jane Austen’s wonderful quip: ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?’”
Mark Johnson in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024) [It turns out to be the long-suffering father of the Bennett girls in Pride and Prejudice]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I deplored the fact that the uniform Canadian response to Trump’s tariff threats has been to plunge with bellicose stupidity to his intellectual and policy level and embrace the very protectionism we claim to despise.
“Discipline will take you places that motivation can’t...”
Slogan I first saw on a T-shirt at Douvris Martial Arts that is widely cited online without definitive or even plausible initial attribution