I've not read anything by G K Chesterton, but it's on my list:
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." - ILN, 4/19/24
"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." - ILN, 7/16/10
"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." - ILN, 10/23/09
"Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business." - G.K.'s Weekly, 4/10/26
"The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense." - ILN, 9/7/29
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." - ILN, 4/19/24
"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." - ILN, 7/16/10
"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." - ILN, 10/23/09
"Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business." - G.K.'s Weekly, 4/10/26
"The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense." - ILN, 9/7/29
5 comments:
And he was saying this in the 1920s.
Smart cookie.
I haven't agreed with a word you have written recently and have struggled to avoid pointing out your bizarre hypocrisy in some areas :( But we can agree on Chesterton :) Alongside W.E.H Lecky he's a favourite of mine.
have a great weekend
I assume you're referring to my cynicism regarding the latest war? I don't know what you think is hypocritical - that I criticise Cameron on the one hand for bombing a dictator and on the other for touring the Middle East selling weapons to other dictators? I'm not the only hypocrit, obviously.
My opinions have no influence on the matter. I'm naturally cautious, I don't know what's going on over there, so I'm not going to support something when I don't have half the facts. To me it looks like a tribal war, and I don't have allegiance to any tribe in Libya. I've lived long enough to see a number of these interventions, and they have generally turned out bad. I don't claim to have all the answers or consider myself infallible. If you take a different view, fine. I can see a case can be made to defend civilians, but that doesn't seem to be the plan, which is instead to intervene on the side of the rebels, the same side, incidentally, that Al Quaida are supporting! Politics, eh.
Might I also recommend Chesterton's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard":
"The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And birds and bees of England
About the cross can roam.
But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.
And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
They have no graves as yet."
That's good - little has changed.
Here's one I forgot to include:
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around." - Orthodoxy, 1908
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