It is a little interesting to see that the stalwart conservative William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was feeling darkly disillusioned toward the end of his career and life.

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In his biography on Burke, Mr. Norman gives some discussion on some of the shortcomings of the liberal, individualistic society, as seen in our current day economic and political stresses of a society that is big on debt and ease and is averse to sacrifice and self-discipline. It is a familiar lamentation, but it is well expressed.

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“To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is … the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.”

-- Edmund Burke

[Source: Jesse Norman, “Edmund Burke”]

“You can only live as long as you’re drunk with life; but when you sober up, you can’t help but see that all this is just a fraud, and a stupid fraud. Precisely that: there’s nothing even amusing or witty about it; it’s simply cruel and stupid.”-- Leo Tolstoy ( Read more... )

Hermann Hesse begins the main narrative thread in his story of midlife crisis with the sort of angst that any reasonably healthy but rather unsuccessful fellow can recognize as he begins his decline into aged life.

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A collection of Isaiah Berlin's letters have been published. He is considered a liberal, but I suppose he is of the old school, such that we might call him a conservative liberal. He wouldn't be a Tea Partier and anti-evolutionist, but he probably also wouldn't be a vegan or much for feminist studies and affirmative action. He is a good ( Read more... )

“I had to write this term paper, and I made it about how America has given the world two inventions of enormous power. One is nuclear weapons; the other is rock and roll. It is a question, I wrote, which one is going to win out in the end.”

-- Schoolgirl character in the film “Not Fade Away” (2012)

“Everything I know about life, I learned from the daily practice of sitting down to write.”

-- Dani Shapiro

“Death is the great angel of writing. You must write because you are not going to live any more.”

-- Carlos Fuentes

And anything you have to say will have to remain unsaid.

“Christianity is not about good people getting better. It is about real people coping with their failure to be good.”

-- David ZahlToo often Christianity seems to be about people who think they are good telling us that we are shit, which seems all the more ridiculous when they murder an abortion doctor, condemn gays, insist on early-earth ( Read more... )