Epigraphs
One use of his commonplaces was to supply mottoes for his own and others’ periodical essays. Johnson’s adeptness in providing epigraphs suggests something about how he read and filed away crystals of literature that…
Today’s One-Liner (#293)
This is that conquest of the world and of ourselves, which has been always considered as the perfection of human nature; and this is only to be obtained by fervent prayer, steady resolution, and frequent…
Today’s One-Liner (#292)
The four cardinal natural virtues are fertilizer for the spiritual soil in which the three theological virtues are to grow. –Peter Kreeft, Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas Aquinas, 113
First Things First
Let us look at our own shortcomings and leave other people’s alone; for those who live carefully ordered lives are apt to be shocked at everything and we might well learn very important lessons from…
Just Taking Care of the Kulaks
“All these words had their effect on me too. I was only a girl—and during meetings and special briefings, from films, books, articles, and radio broadcasts, from Stalin himself, I kept hearing one and the…
Today’s One-Liner (#291)
In the West, too, appeared The Gulag Archipelago, his monumental three-volume exposé of the Soviet slave-labor system which single-handedly destroyed what remained of Western illusions about the great Communist experiment. –Joseph Epstein, Life Sentences: Literary…
An Exchange on America
The following arrived in my in-box today as I am a subscriber to journalist Matt Taibbi‘s Substack. Monty Python’s “What Have the Romans… Reader Paul E.–Are you a card-carrying Exceptionalist, Matt, that you believe this…
Today’s One-Liner (#290)
It is a comfort to me, that at last, in my sixty-third year, I have attained to know, even thus hastily, confusedly, and imperfectly, what my Bible contains. –Samuel Johnson, cited in Fiona MacMath, The…
Come Out Swinging
[Simone] Weil’s critique of Marx is impressive in its sweep, its remorseless logic, and its passion, recalling the contemporary writing of Berdiaev. –David McLellan/ Utopian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of Simone Weil, 77
Today’s One-Liner (#289)
While I thought that there was some element of madness in her projects, I recall that after having seen her I was even more convinced than before that she was some sort of saint. –Simone…