Notable Quotable 269

May 10, 2024

When the family shall no longer have a head, and the great foundation for the subordination of children in the mother's example is gone; when the mother shall have found another sphere than her home for her energies; when she shall have exchanged the sweet charities of domestic love and sympathy for the fierce passions of the hustings; when families shall be disrupted at the caprice of either party, and the children scattered as foundlings from their hearthstone, — it requires no wisdom to see that a race of sons will be reared nearer akin to devils than to men. In the hands of such a bastard progeny, without discipline, without homes, without a God, the last remains of social order will speedily perish, and society will be overwhelmed in savage anarchy.

- R.L. Dabney

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

- Charles de Gaulle

Demagogue: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

- H.L. Mencken

When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.

- Dresden James

What we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.

- Clive Bell, Civilization

Strike.Me

Buy Me a Coffee

It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?

- Thomas Merton

It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other. Is there no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level?

- Mark Twain

May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either the Republican or the Democratic Parties.

- W.E.B. DuBois

Denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.

- Philip Gourevitch

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.

- Jessica Dovey