Category: Commonplace_1
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Alan Jacobs…”…the essay form is the literary representation of a man thinking…”
The essay is the genre of thinking out loud.
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Josef Pieper..”…only the silent hear…”
“Leisure is a form of silence, of that silence which is the prerequisite of the apprehension of reality: only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear.” – Josef Pieper
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Roger Scruton: “We do not merely study the past…”
“We do not merely study the past, we inherit it, and inheritance brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but the duties of trusteeship. Things fought for and died for should not be idly squandered. For they are the property of others, who are not yet born”
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G. K. Chesterton on dragons
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.” — G. K. Chesterton
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Boris Pasternak: “Lara walked along the tracks…to call each thing by its right name.”
Laura walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower -scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her that her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book.…
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C. S. Lewis: On The Medieval Sky
You must go out on a starry night and walk about for half an hour trying to see the sky in terms of the old cosmology. Remember that you now have an absolute Up and Down. The Earth is really the centre, really the lowest place; movement to it from is downward movement. As a…
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G. K. Chesterton: “…the carpe diem religion…”
“…the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw.”
