Notable Quotable #39

Dec 04, 2022

It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no-one needs to be good.

- T.S. Eliot

Being the intellectual avant-garde is always the preserve of a minority.
Courage is always capable of gaining a majority only when the tide of history has turned.
Those who cannot stand alone at the moment of crisis will be blown away by the winds of history at the next opportunity.

- Milosz Matuschek

"We look on past ages with condescension, as a mere preparation for us... but what if we are a mere after-glow of them?"

- J.G. Farrell

”Once broken, not all the tinkering of the sociologists can put the home together again.”

- Richard Weaver

”If you have to slay a dragon, you should go to it's lair before it comes to your village.”

- Jordan Peterson

"Some of the problems commonly engaging the attention of philosophical thought appear to be deprived, not only of all importance, but of any meaning as well; a host of problems arise resting solely upon some ambiguity or upon a confusion of points of view, problems that only exist in fact because they are badly expressed, and that normally should not arise at all. In most cases therefore, it would in itself be sufficient to set these problems forth correctly in order to cause them to disappear, were it not that philosophy has an interest in keeping them alive, since it thrives largely upon ambiguities."

- René Guénon

"We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place."

- Joseph De Maistre

“A cultivated soul is one where the din of living does not drown out the music of the dead.”

- Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul."

- Simone Weil

“Our culture has shrunk truth to the level of the personal. Truth is something you construct for yourself - it is only as big as your world.”

- Andrew Fellows