March 2012
88 posts
“Harris is blaming conservatives for doing simply what the space/time continuum...”
– Douglas Wilson, blogging through the latest Sam Harris book. (via sds)
“My dear Francesco, I have lately kept praising the age in which we live, because...”
– Niccolò Perotti, 1471 (as quoted by Robert Darnton in The Case for Books)
““Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?”
“So easy that, to tell you the...”
– from a conversation between Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night (via settledthingsstrange)
“What fun is it being cool if you can’t wear a sombrero!”
– Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (Twitter)
Lots of wisdom packed in this. So often our “growth” artificially limits us, forcing us to discard good things we once knew. Reminded of it by watching the 5yo play with the toddler this AM.
(via triadic)
“The Greeks studied in order to understand. The Hebrews studied in order to...”
– Abraham Heschel
quoted in Anna Kamienska’s “The Notebook: 1973-1979:
(via settledthingsstrange)
"Science on the Rampage" by Freeman Dyson →
“As William Blake told us long ago, ‘You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.’”
“Only a very soft-headed, sentimental, and rather servile generation of men could...”
– G.K. Chesterton in What I Saw in America (via gkchestertonquote)
A few more personal notes
I was away from my laptop for ten days. This laptop is the only machine on which I access Tumblr. When I scrolled down to wear I had left off, the indicator was to page 36; by the time I had finished reblogging everything I had wanted, there were four pages of just me. Thanks for letting me dredge the last week and half a bit.
Over break, I read D’Souza’s two most recent books and...
“In refusing the mimetic interpretation, in looking for the failure of Peter in...”
– Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (via hulga-joy)
“America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed...”
– G.K. Chesterton in What I Saw in America (via gkchestertonquote)
“Since we nowadays think that all a man needs for acquisition of truth is to...”
– Josef Pieper (via settledthingsstrange)
“The advent of Sarah Palin, however, seemed to usher in a genuine madness that...”
– Can “Good Faith” Still be Assumed? | First Things (via ayjay)
“Private property is not a bribe that exists for the sake of private enterprise....”
– G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly, 16th May 1935 (via gkchestertonquote)
“The persecution of science by religion is something of which we hear a good...”
– G.K. Chesterton in The Illustrated London News March 8, 1924 (via gkchestertonquote)
“The point of the resurrection … is that the present bodily life is not valueless...”
– N.T. Wright, from Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (via settledthingsstrange)
“For we ought not to refuse to learn letters because they say that Mercury...”
– Augustine, On Christian Doctrine: Book II
I’ve heard “all truth is God’s truth” for years now, but hadn’t tracked down the source until now. (h/t poeticfaith)
Settled Things Strange: The Delicateness of... →
settledthingsstrange:
At this point in his narrative, Mr. Pond threw himself back in his chair with a more impatient movement than he commonly permitted himself. “Of course, they will do it,” he said, with a mild explosiveness. “They’re admired and thought very tactful when they do it.” “When who do what?” said…
“Christ has promised that we would have life “more abundant.” By this is not...”
– Worship at His Footstool « Glory to God for All Things (via triadic)
“A group of psychiatrists have spearheaded a movement to include ongoing grief as...”
– Slate (The Grief Cure) The pathologizing of grief — which of course serves primarily to line the pockets of therapists and pharmaceutical companies — is predation upon the vulnerable. It’s just evil, and people who propose it ought to be publicly shamed. (via ayjay)
My grandmother will be mourning...
“I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it...”
– G.K. Chesterton in Tremendous Trifles (via gkchestertonquote)
“On every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to...”
– G.K. Chesterton in All Things Considered (via gkchestertonquote)
“They’re handsome things [volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica], somehow...”
– Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Spinelessness (via ayjay)
“For Girard, Nietzsche is very important as a great philosopher who saw quite...”
– from James G. Williams’ foreword to Rene Girard’s I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (via hulga-joy)
“There will be no new print editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica—Wikipedia...”
– Roger Angell. People say this kind of thing all the time. I used to say it myself, until I happened to notice that I could go online to google one phrase and end up clicking links for the next six hours. (via ayjay)
I disagree with Dr. Jacobs on this point, if only because the nature of the link...
“The growth of sociable robotics is one thing that changed my mind. People are so...”
– A Conversation with Sherry Turkle (via ayjay)
“I represent the jolly mass of mankind. I am the happy and reckless Christian.”
– G.K. Chesterton in the Daily News, 12/13/1907 (via gkchestertonquote)
“These once-isolated people, a tiny group, have no system of numbers; their...”
– Language: The Cultural Tool by Daniel Everett (via ayjay)
“In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there,...”
– Simone Weil, quoted in Benedict XVI’s address to artists (via settledthingsstrange)
“Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he...”
– Dostoyevsky (via settledthingsstrange)
“Brittanica went bankrupt in 1996, long before Wikipedia was a crowdsourced gleam...”
– Wikipedia Didn’t Kill Brittanica; Windows Did | Epicenter | Wired.com (via ayjay)
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here: Dante’s medieval classic the Divine Comedy...”
– The Guardian (via ayjay)
And what is the word for this sort of behavior? A travesty of education, that this should be removed from the canon.
“It is vain to rule if your subjects can and do disobey you. It is vain to vote...”
– G.K. Chesterton in the Illustrated London News, 5/12/1912 (via gkchestertonquote)
“Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely...”
– Flannery O’Connor (via dailyflanneryoc)
“As ‘After-birth Abortion’ spread around the world and gained wide publicity —...”
– Andrew Ferguson. I think Ferguson might make even more of this than he does. The editors are saying, quite straightforwardly, We do not expect or want the people who could be affected by our recommendations to see those recommendations, or how we arrive at them. This is the classic behavior of what... 