“His [Cicero’s] incredible vanity appears more amiably here [in his letters] than in his orations, where he seems to be carrying his own statue with him wherever he goes…”
Will Durant Caesar and Christ
“Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.”
G.K. Chesterton in “Fear of the Past” in What’s Wrong With The World, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #6
“To [the Marquis de] Sade, of course, it had all been folly. There was no brotherhood of man; there was no duty owed by the weak to the strong. Evangelicals, like Jacobins, were the dupes of their shared inheritance: their belief in progress; their conviction in the potential of reform; their faith in humanity might be brought to light. Yet it was precisely this kinship, this synergy, that enabled Castlereagh, faced by the obduracy of his fellow foreign ministers, to craft a compromise that was, in every sense of the word, enlightened. Unable to force through an explicit outlawing of the slave trade, he settled instead for something at once more nebulous and more far-reaching. On 8 February 1815, eight powers in Europe signed up to a momentous declaration. Slavery, it stated, was ‘repugnant to the principles of humanity and universal morality’. The language of evangelical Protestantism was fused with that of the French Revolution. Napoleon, slipping his place of exile three weeks after the declaration had been signed, and looking to rally international support for his return, had no hesitation in proclaiming his support for the declaration. That June, in the great battle outside Brussels that terminally ended his ambitions, both sides were agreed that slavery, as an institution, was an abomination. The twin traditions of Britain and France, of Benjamin Lay and Voltaire, of enthusiasts for the Spirit and enthusiasts for reason, had joined in amity even before the first cannon was fired at Waterloo. The irony was one that neither Protestants nor atheists cared to dwell upon: that an age of enlightenment and revolution had served to establish as international law a principle that derived from the depths of the Catholic past. Increasingly, it was in the language of human rights that Europe would proclaim its values to the world.”
Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
“The danger to [country X] is not [the incumbent], but a citizenry capable of entrusting a [person] like [him or her] with the [office]. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of [his/her time in power] than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a [person] for their [leader]. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than [the incumbent], who is a mere symptom of what ails [the country]. Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a [name of incumbent], who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their [president/prime minister/etc].”
This item circulates online claiming to be “From a Prague newspaper” and targeting various leaders from Barack Obama to Justin Trudeau and has been doing so since at least 2009. But while I deplore fakery of all sorts, I quote it because I do think the warning it contains is valid and important across a wide range of countries
In my latest Epoch Times column I warn that politicians becoming too slick for words is a classic example of improving something until it is utterly ruined.
“Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”
C.S. Lewis The Magician's Nephew
“People forget how fast you did a job – but they remember how well you did it.”
Howard Newton quoted in Cliff Chadderton Excuse Us! Herr Schicklgruber
“The portrait of mankind as painted by the cynical evolutionist is a dreary one. Draped in a ragged costume of skin and bones, driven by primeval instincts and chemical imbalances, this poor excuse for an organism provides us with little cause for celebration. They litter the continents with war and with industrialization, pollute the atmosphere, and eternally suffer under the horrors of famine and bloodshed. Yet the eyes of G.K. Chesterton spy wonders even in the midst of chaos.”
Monica Larkin, “Essay Award Winner, Chesterton Academy of the Twin Cities” Class of 2024, in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #6 (July-August 2024)