Quotes of: Essays Keyword

There is no religion and no philosophy that can give us a comprehensive answer to the whole of our problems, and the abandonment and isolation of the individual who is given no answer, or only inadequate answers, to his question lead to a situation i...

The Fear of the Feminine: And Other Essays on Feminine Psychology

In this confusion we begin to see what lies behind John Paul II's startling warning about democracy "effectively mov[ing] towards a form of totalitarianism." It begins to happen at a practical level when we simultaneously hold that rights which arise...

God and Caesar: Selected Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society

As well as being essential to theological study, philosophy is an indispensable tool for communicating theology, for evangelization and catechesis. A faith based on how warm and comfortable you feel and how "affirmed" you are by your community is ple...

God and Caesar: Selected Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society

Now, it is frequently asserted that, with women, the job does not come first. What (people cry) are women doing with this liberty of theirs? What woman really prefers a job to a home and family? Very few, I admit. It is unfortunate that they should s...

Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

[…] Everyone tries to make his life a work of art. We want love to last and we know that it does not last; even if, by some miracle, it were to last a whole lifetime, it would still be incomplete. Perhaps, in this insatiable need for perpetuation, ...

The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt

In school I ended up writing three different papers on "The Castaway" section of Moby-Dick, the chapter where the cabin boy Pip falls overboard and is driven mad by the empty immensity of what he finds himself floating in. And when I teach school now...

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil,...

The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters

The grand scheme of a life, maybe (just maybe), is not about knowing or not knowing, choosing or not choosing. Perhaps what is truly known can’t be described or articulated by creativity or logic, science or art — but perhaps it can be described ...

Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design

It is a pity indeed to travel and not get this essential sense of landscape values. You do not need a sixth sense for it. It is there if you just close your eyes and breathe softly through your nose; you will hear the whispered message, for all lands...

Spirit Of Place: Letters And Essays On Travel

I blame the Internet. Its inconsiderate inclusion of everything.Success is transparent and accessible, hanging down where it can tease but not touch us. We talk into these scratchy microphones and take extra photographs but I still feel like there ar...

The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories

... no sensitive Christian can be satisfied with a distinction between righteousness and unrighteousness drawn only between communities, with each individual belonging unambiguously on one or the other side of the line. The behavior of "the righteous...

Pluralisms And Horizons: An Essay In Christian Public Philosophy

A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclusion to the contrary from our own superannua...

Table-Talk, Essays on Men and Manners

But when the wizard is onstage as the main character, you have to adopt what I call the Jack Vance Rule. I call it this because Jack Vance is the first author successfully and adroitly to have applied this rule in his The Dying Earth. The Jack Vance ...

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

Just then, just when I thought I would be free from the repeated blows to my tender head of the Stupidity Hammer, the Stupidity Hammer rose up from the shining screen, drew back, whirled hugely, and with great force and might and main slammed me righ...

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true. The whole defence of religious faith hinges upon action. If the action required or ...

The Will to Believe, Human Immortality, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

The Complete Essays

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

The Complete Essays

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

Collected Essays

Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.

The Complete Essays

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.

The Complete Essays

Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

The Complete Essays