scitis fratres mei dilecti sit autem omnis homo velox ad audiendum tardus autem ad loquendum et tardus ad iram
James 1:19
Archives For November 30, 1999
The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
When Hitler declared war on the United States, he was betting that German soldiers, raised up in the Hitler Youth, would always out fight American soldiers, brought up in the Boy Scouts. He lost that bet. The Boy Scouts had been taught how to figure their way out of their own problems.
Stephen E. Ambrose
Courage is being the only only one who knows how terrified you are.
Tom Clancy, Red Rabbit
We can’t make you do anything, but we can make you wish you had. – Army saying
Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers
The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you’re right. As one grows old, it is easier still.
Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity
A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian. I may repeat “Do as you would be done by” till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward – driven on from social matters to religious matters
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artis / paulatim. (So that experience, by attentive thought, might gradually beat out the various arts.)
Virgil, Georgics Book I Line 133
Being a victim is more palatable than having to recognize the intrinsic contradictions of one’s own governing philosophy.
Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October
Man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily “true” or “false,” but as “academic” or “practical,” “outworn” or “contemporary,” “conventional” or “ruthless.” Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Acerbity [əˈsɜːbɪtɪ] 