Looking Beyond the Bloody Chaos of History

By |2022-02-18T10:13:41-06:00February 12th, 2022|Categories: Christendom, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Quotation, St. Augustine|

It was in this age of ruin and distress that St. Augustine lived and worked. To the materialist, nothing could be more futile than the spectacle of Augustine busying himself with the reunion of the African Church and the refutation of the Pelagians, while civilisation was falling to pieces about his ears. It would seem [...]

History: The Miracles of Memory and Tradition

By |2021-11-05T10:24:29-05:00November 5th, 2021|Categories: Family, Featured, History, Quotation, Timeless Essays, Will Durant, Wisdom|

The very excess of our present paganism may warrant some hope that it will not long endure; for usually excess generates its opposite. One of the most regular sequences in history is that a period of pagan license is followed by an age of puritan restraint and moral discipline. So the moral decay of ancient [...]

Principles of Excellence

By |2021-09-07T14:11:19-05:00September 7th, 2021|Categories: Eastern Thought, Quotation|

When one sets to work, one should be liberal but strict, gentle but firm, frank but reverent, orderly but alert, compliant but courageous, forthright but warm, easy going but unyielding, resolute but sincere, forceful but righteous. If one can manifest these principles, it is excellent indeed! If one can show three of these nine virtues [...]

Proper Order and the Commonwealth

By |2021-09-03T11:27:17-05:00August 28th, 2021|Categories: Confucius, Eastern Thought, Quotation, Wisdom|

The illustrious ancients, when they wished to make clear and to propagate the highest virtues in the world, put their states in proper order. Before putting their states in proper order, they regulated their families. Before regulating their families, they cultivated their own selves. Before cultivating their own selves, they perfected their souls. Before perfecting [...]

“A Journey Through Texas”

By |2021-03-02T00:38:39-06:00March 2nd, 2021|Categories: American West, Quotation, South, Texas|

“You are welcomed by a figure in blue flannel shirt and pendant beard, quoting Tacitus, having in one hand a long pipe, in the other a butcher’s knife; Madonnas upon log walls; coffee in tin cups upon Dresden saucers; barrels for seats, to hear Beethoven’s symphony on the grand piano.” —From "A Journey Through Texas, [...]

“Shut the Door on the World”

By |2021-04-24T23:01:44-05:00February 23rd, 2021|Categories: Literature, Quotation|

How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its shelter, entangled themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world call "life,"—that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To live, according to this sense of the word, we must not only observe and learn, we must also [...]

The Astounding Transformation of Stonewall Jackson

By |2021-06-24T18:57:57-05:00January 21st, 2021|Categories: Civil War, Quotation|

As an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute, Thomas Jonathan Jackson was a poor professor, given to memorizing his lectures and delivering them in a monotone voice to his classes, word-for-word. His students teased him behind his back and fired spitballs at each other during classes, with little fear of their wooden, seemingly hapless teacher. [...]

Cry, the Beloved Country

By |2022-10-07T12:08:35-05:00June 4th, 2020|Categories: Books, Quotation|

Some of us think when we have power, we shall revenge ourselves on the white man who has had power, and because our desire is corrupt, we are corrupted, and the power has no heart in it. But most white men do not know this truth about power, and they are afraid lest we get [...]

The Well-Read Voter

By |2020-02-12T08:26:36-06:00February 12th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, John Adams, Quotation, Statesman|

The English Constitution is founded, tis bottomed And grounded on the Knowledge and good sense of the People. The very Ground of our Liberties, is the freedom of Elections. Every Man has in Politicks as well as Religion, a Right to think and speak and Act for himself. No man either King or Subject, Clergyman [...]

Making Sense of Mozart’s Death

By |2023-12-05T05:33:57-06:00December 4th, 2019|Categories: Books, Quotation, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|

Is it possible and does it make sense to deal with the last four years of Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’s creative life without being fixated on the catastrophe of the composer's premature end? His death forever changed the course of musical classicism at the turn of the eighteenth century because, to give just one example, it [...]

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