Birthday Song (One of ’em)

I did my best, it wasn’t muchI couldn’t feel, so I tried to touchI’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool yaAnd even though it all went wrongI’ll stand before the lord of songWith…

Churches

“I had hired a Bohemian as my servant while I remained in London, and being much pleased with him, I asked Dr. Johnson whether his being a Roman Catholick should prevent my taking him with…

Today’s One-Liner (#239)

I hope to read the whole Bible once a year as long as I live. –Dr. Samuel Johnson, quoted in Fiona MacMath, The Faith of Samuel Johnson: An Anthology of His Spiritual and Moral Writings…

Inexplicable, and I Most of All

“And I shall also tell you, dear mother, that each of us is guilty in everything before everyone, and I most of all.” At that mother even smiled, she wept and smiled: “How can it…

Today’s One-Liner (#238)

And every day, down to this day, I have remembered the long-suffering servant of God, Mikhail, in my prayers. –Starets Zosima, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

St. Thomas Aquinas

Sheer intellectual greatness is never so attractive, never appeals so much to the imagination and to the emotions as greatness of a more practical kind. That is why Napoleon, Caesar, and Joan of Arc will…

Today’s One-Liner (#237)

Inordinate fear is included in every sin; the miser fears the loss of money, the intemperate man the loss of pleasure. –Saint Thomas Aquinas, in Josef Pieper, The Human Wisdom of St. Thomas, #302

These Two

[Dale] Carnegie commanded anyone wishing to acquire truly extensive and precise diction to give over his days and nights to the Bible and Shakespeare. So I began to read these two sacred texts at bedtime. …