“Our plans miscarry because we have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”
Seneca, quoted by a writer whose name I did not record in National Review July 11, 1994
“Great men are almost always bad men”
Lord Acton (aka John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton of Aldenham) quoted in James C. Holland’s Introduction to the Acton Institute’s 1993 edition of Acton’s The History of Freedom
“There is nothing wrong with old ideas, so long as they are true. And there is nothing admirable about new ones, if they aren’t.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“Any fool can have an opinion…”
Neil Postman Building a Bridge to the 18th Century
“Constantine, sometimes (Heaven knows why) called Constantine the Great, was emperor.”
Hendrik Willem van Loon The Story of Mankind
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the real scandal in our government falsely claiming to be helping the U.S. and Britain against Iranian-backed Islamist pirates isn’t that they’re lying, it’s that they’re deluded.
“History sometimes rests on narrow shoulders.”
Paul Wells in National Post December 11, 1999
“Previous civilizations have degenerated. Previous ages have marched into the dark not knowing that they were marching into the dark. But in any previous time, were artists, scholars, and thinkers so eager to explain that degeneration was really progress?”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” April 17, 2023 [https://undergroundthomist.org/antipasto]