“What we ought to consider is this: not that certain ideals are impossible, but that they are undesirable.”

G.K. Chesterton in “A Critic in Utopia” in Middlesex Gazette December 22, 1906, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #5 (May/June 2024)

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

T.S. Eliot according to https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/101806-half-the-harm-that-is-done-in-this-world-is [part of it was emailed by a friend but whenever possible I do try to check]

The historical approach to English Literature “has been destroyed at Cambridge and is now being destroyed at Oxford too. This is done by a compact, well-organized group of whom [F.R.] Leavis is the head. It now has a stranglehold on the schools as well as the universities (and the High Brow press). It is too open and avowed to be called a plot. It is much more like a political party – or Inquisition. Leavis himself is something (in the long run) more fatal than a villain. He is a perfectly sincere, disinterested, fearless, ruthless fanatic. I am sure he would, if necessary, die for his critical principles: I am afraid he might also kill for them. Ultimately, a pathological type – unhappy, intense, mirthless. Incapable of conversation: dead silence or prolonged, passionate, and often irrelevant, monologue are his only two lines.”

A letter from C.S. Lewis to J.B. Priestley on September 18, 1962, quoted in Harry Lee Poe The Completion of C.S. Lewis

“This rock [Plymouth Rock] has become an object of veneration in the United States. I have seen fragments carefully preserved in several American cities. Does not that clearly prove that man’s power and greatness resides entirely in his soul? A few poor souls trod for an instant on this rock, and it has become famous; it is prized by a great nation; fragments are venerated, and tiny pieces distributed far and wide. What has become of the doorsteps of a thousand palaces? Who cares about them?”

Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America (Lawrence’s translation) [though giving I think a bit too much credit to the Pilgrims in his talk of Puritans]

“All bad language necessarily weakens itself by use.”

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

“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

“Most fundamental falsehoods are errors in language as well as in philosophy. Most statements that are unreasonable are really ungrammatical.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News October 16, 1909 quoted in “More About Language” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)