Man by nature asks questions he cannot possibly answer. If a man also rejects authority, the result is a detached nihilism or despair.If a young man decides to scale to the top of a giant walnut tree by himself but simply cannot do it, he will need help. If he is too proud to accept [...]
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Monday, November 29th, 2004
“I suppose I divide people into two classes: the Irksome and the Non-Irksome, without regard to sex. Yes and there are the Medium Irksome and the Rare Irksome.” Flannery O’Connor.
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Sunday, November 28th, 2004
Those who fail to see that love means sacrifice, live miserably or shallowly.Love, after all, is the ultimate source of happiness.
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Sunday, November 28th, 2004
Presenting a GKC quote is almost cheap. They’re so plentiful and many of them so well-known, it’s just too easy and commonplace. But once in awhile I see a new one and it’s too good to keep private.Definition of secularism: “the idea that the religious sentiment, which stretched from one end of history to the [...]
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Saturday, November 27th, 2004
The only way most people can be better off exchanging gifts than keeping the money and spending it on themselves is if their kith and kin know them so well, have cared enough to know them so well, as to give them things they wanted without realizing it. John Robson
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Sunday, November 21st, 2004
When do we hit middle age? I think most people would place it at 35-40, but I see people who look middle aged at 33 and some who look youthful at 43. It’s probably not a matter of one’s chronological age, as much as it is the arrival of certain characteristics. Maybe when the body [...]
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Saturday, November 20th, 2004
I earlier said The Great Society and its descendants today like college-aid programs for single mothers are manifestly unjust in their “actual workings on the individual level.” I qualified it because all such programs are couched in terms of “social justice.” Their proponents would argue that their programs correct prevous manifest injustice: the socio-economic conditions [...]
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Saturday, November 20th, 2004
Chesterton “could, and would, write under the influence of alcohol, with no visible difficulties or impairments to his thought and clarity.” Michael Coren
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Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
I recently read a ratty old copy of George Gissing’s The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (c. 1903). One of the most pleasurable books I’ve read. A few excerpts:For not, surely, by deliberate effort of thought does a man grow wise. The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments unforeseen, some gracious [...]
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Sunday, November 14th, 2004
“It is impossible to be a Christian without effort.” Paul Claudel
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Sunday, November 14th, 2004
It’s curious that pornography has increased in America at the same time that access to higher education has increased. At a time when we’re supposed to be getting smarter, we’re voluntarily plunging ourselves into the dream world of stupidity.
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