“WHEN WE START DOWN the path of reading books that are true, we run the risk of no longer being able to understand an illiterate culture. Here are three examples and a farce. Nancy Pelosi, speaking to the press about Barack Obama after his election victory said, ‘Obama has the Midas touch!’ The crowd cheered and applauded. In Canada – that patch of snowbound woods directly north of New England – Peter MacKay, a Conservative, explained why they had just lost the election to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. He blamed social conservatives and pro-lifers who were ‘a stinking albatross’ around the neck of the Conservative Party. The press praised his acumen. A third example: I heard a radio advertisement about a head-hunting business that specializes in finding the right employees for other businesses. They claim that they are able to find the right person just like ‘Finding the needle in the hay stack!’”

David Beresford in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023)

“For as Chesterton remarked, you cannot introduce anarchy into the intellect without also introducing anarchy into the commonwealth.”

Link Byfield in British Columbia Report November 17, 1997

“The worst of using strong language is that it produces weak language.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News June 28, 1926 quoted in “More About Language” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)

“Ladborough discovered that Lewis got on well with the college servants, who respected and admired him as a person without realizing that he was, in Ladborough’s words, ‘a great man.’ They called him a real gentleman, for he seemed to care about them. This manner of his reflects his greatness. He was not great because of the books he wrote; he wrote the kind of books he wrote because he was great.”

Harry Lee Poe The Completion of C.S. Lewis

James “Madison was the Father of the Constitution, Architect of the Bill of Rights, and the only Secretary of State never to have left the country. The oldest of 12 children, he could read and write in seven languages. He attended the College of New Jersey (which became Princeton) instead of William and Mary – where Jefferson went and got all those Scottish Enlightenment Ideas.”

Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #3 (Jan.-Feb. 2024)

“Without freedom of speech, we would not know who the idiots are.”

Emailed without attribution by a friend May 28, 2024

“The modern laxity of language has had a great deal to do with the ultimate laxity of conduct.”

G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly July 4, 1931 quoted in “More About Language” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)

“In 100 years, we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college.”

Joe Sobran quoted “In the last issue of Gilbert” by David Deavel, according to Pamela Patnode “The Art of Language” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #1 (Sept.-Oct. 2023); she added “The observation rings true today, and it has scriptural significance.”