Great Throughts Treasury

"The worst sort of hypocrite and liar is the man who lies to himself in order to feel at ease."

"There is nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends."

"Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language. "

"From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends. "

"Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun."

"When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly. "

"A Catholic culture does not mean or imply universality. A nation or a whole civilization is of the Catholic culture not when it is entirely composed of strong believers minutely practicing their religion, nor even whit it boasts a majority of such, but when it presents a determining number of units-family institutions, individuals, inspired by and tenacious of the Catholic spirit."

"A strong Protectionist, believes in everything but Heaven. For entertainment, dines, receives, unmarried, 57."

"Alas! That such affected tricks should flourish in a child of six!"

"All teaching is dogmatic. Dogma, indeed, means only "a thing taught," and teaching not dogmatic would cease to be teaching and would become discussion and doubt."

"All men have an instinct for conflict: at least, all healthy men."

"All that can best be expressed in words should be expressed in verse, but verse is a slow thing to create; nay, it is not really created: it is a secretion of the mind, it is a pearl that gathers round some irritant and slowly expresses the very essence of beauty and of desire that has lain long, potential and unexpressed, in the mind of the man who secretes it. God knows that this Unknown Country has been hit off in verse a hundred times."

"Always keep a-hold of Nurse For fear of finding something worse"

"An effort was made to spread this new materialist atheism with its Communist consequence by the sword (as the metaphor goes), that is, by the invasion of neighboring countries with consequent further massacres and the extension of the area of despotic Soviet control... This armed attempt at expansion was checked by Catholic Poland, the most immediately exposed victim, in what has been called one of the decisive battles of the world."

"An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight."

"An Essay on the Restoration of Property (1936)"

"And the men that were boys when I was a boy Shall sit and drink with me."

"And as to what may be in this book, do not feel timid nor hesitate to enter. There are more mountains than molehills."

"And what is there else but pleasure, and to what else does beauty move on?"

"Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring."

"Be at the pains of putting down every single item of expenditure whatsoever every day which could possibly be twisted into a professional expense and remember to lump in all the doubtfuls."

"Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes properly can do nothing else."

"Before the curse of statistics fell upon mankind we lived a happy, innocent life, full of merriment and go and informed by fairly good judgment."

"Broke - and democracy resumed her reign ( which goes with bridge and women and champagne."

"Because my children are howling for pearls and caviar."

"Belloc led the charge in his critique of this misguided sense of superiority and myopic view of progress. But it was he alone among historians, social commentators, and counter-cultural voices who predicted that Islam?or as he called it, Mohammedanism?would rise again and, as it had in the past, harness the technology of the West as a weapon to turn back on the West and crush it by degrees. After September 11, 2001, no one is surprised to learn that Islam is turning the West?s superiority back on itself; what is surprising is that a lone historian and essayist saw this coming in the 1930s. That he captivates and places the reader in the middle of the action is an added bonus to the prophetic vision of what embroils our age."

"But that is a method for cowards; the brave man goes out into the hall, comes back with a stick, and says firmly, You have just deliberately and cruelly exposed my ignorance before this company; I shall, therefore, beat you soundly with this stick in the presence of them all.This you then do to him or he to you, mutatis mutandis, ceteris paribus; and that is all I have to say on Ignorance."

"But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about."

"But as a Godless greed pursued its career from excess to excess, it provoked a sort of twin hostile brother, equally Godless, born in the same atmosphere of utter disregard for the foundational virtues of humility and charity. This hostile twin brother of Capitalism was destined to be called Communism, and is today setting out to murder its elder."

"But if I be asked what sign we may look for to show that the advance of the faith is at hand I would answer by a word the modern world has forgotten: Persecution. When that shall once more be at work it will be morning."

"But there is (as the greatest of the ancient Greeks discovered) a certain indissoluble Trinity of Truth, Beauty and Goodness. You cannot deny or attack one of these three without at the same time denying or attacking both the others. Therefore with the advance of this new and terrible enemy against the Faith and all that civilization which the Faith produces, there is coming not only a contempt for beauty but a hatred of it; and immediately upon the heels of this there appears a contempt and hatred for virtue."

"Child! do not throw this book about Refrain from the unholy pleasure Of cutting all the pictures out! Preserve it as your chiefest treasure."

"By thee do seers the inward light discern; by thee the statue lives, the Gods return."

"But though Usury is in itself immoral, and justly condemned by every ethical code, its chief and worst defect in the particular case we are now examining, the growth of Capitalism and its increasing proletariat, is the centralization of irresponsible control over the lives of men: the putting power over the proletariat into the hands of a few who can direct the loans of currency and credit without which that proletariat could not be fed and clothed and maintained in work."

"Communism worked honestly by officials devoid of human frailties and devoted to nothing but the good of its slaves, would have certain manifest material advantages as compared with a proletarian wage-system where millions live in semi-starvation, and many millions more in permanent dread thereof. But even if it were administered thus Communism would only produce its benefits through imposing slavery."

"Capitalism had arisen through the misuse and exaggeration of certain rights, notably the right of property - the basis of economic freedom - and the right of contract, which is one of the main functions of economic freedom. Therefore, even under Capitalism, so long as the old principles were remembered it was possible to recall the principles whereby Society had once been sane and well ordered."

"Coupled with Usury, Unrestricted Competition destroys the small man for the profit of the great and in so doing produces that mass of economically unfree citizens whose very political freedom comes in question because it has no foundation in any economic freedom, that is, any useful proportion of property to support it. Political freedom without economic freedom is almost worthless, and it is because the modern proletariat has the one kind of freedom without the other that its rebellion is now threatening the very structure of the modern world."

"Consider in what way the industrial system developed upon capitalist lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new methods? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of contemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed?"

"Death?people nowadays seem to regard as something odd, whereas it is well known to be the commonest thing in the world."

"Dear Grandmamma, with what we give. We humbly pray that you may live. For many, many happy years: Although you bore us all to tears."

"Do not, I beseech you, be troubled about the increase of forces already in dissolution. You have mistaken the hour of the night; it is already morning."

"Economic freedom is in our eyes a good. It is among the highest of temporal goods because it is necessary to the highest life of society through the dignity of man and through the multiplicity of his action, in which multiplicity is life. Through well-divided property alone can the units of society react upon the State. Through it alone can a public opinion flourish. Only where the bulk of the cells are healthy can the whole organism thrive."

"Even where the Faith is preserved men pursue wealth and power inordinately. Where the Faith is lost they pursue nothing else."

"Even if the wealth and power be well distributed throughout a community, its members will not be happy unless they are inwardly so, and obviously where the distribution is bad, where the few have a vast superfluity and the many are consumed by anxiety or want, or where a few controllers can exercise their will over the many, society has failed, even though its total wealth and power be increased."

"For every time she shouted "Fire!" They only answered "Little liar!" And therefore when her aunt returned, Matilda, and the house, were burned."

"For I know that we laughers have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a sane man."

"For one thing, I was no longer alone; a man is never alone with the wind-and the boat made three."

"For no one, in our long decline, so dusty, spiteful and divided, had quite such pleasant friends as mine, or loved them half as much as I did. The library was most inviting: the books upon the crowded shelves were mainly of our private writing: we kept a school and taught ourselves. From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, theres nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends. You do retain the song we set, and how it rises, trips and scans? You keep the sacred memory yet, Republicans? Republicans?"

"From quiet homes and first beginning out to the undiscovered ends there's nothing worth the wear of winning but laughter and the love of friends."

"For the line of cleavage does not fall between the various groups, Catholic, Agnostic, Evangelical, or what not, but between the Catholic Church and all else. She is unique, and at issue with the world."