22 quotes found
"There were two good fellows I used to know. —How distant it all appears! We played together in football weather, And messed together for years: Now one of them's wed, and the other's dead So long that he's hardly missed Save by us, who messed with him years ago: But we're all in the old School List."
"Will there never come a season Which shall rid us from the curse? Of a prose which knows no reason And an unmelodious verse: When the world shall cease to wonder At the genius of an Ass, And a boy's eccentric blunder Shall not bring success to pass:When mankind shall be delivered From the clash of magazines, And the inkstand shall be shivered Into countless smithereens: When there stands a muzzled stripling, Mute, beside a muzzled bore: When the Rudyards cease from Kipling And the Haggards Ride no more."
"In short, if your body or mind Or your soul or your purse come to grief, You need only get drunk, and you'll find Complete and immediate relief."
"To see Good Tennis! What divine joy Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ? Let other people play at other things; The King of Games is still the Game of Kings."
"I do not want to see that girl again: I did not like her: and I should not mind If she were done away with, killed, or ploughed. She did not seem to serve a useful end: And certainly she was not beautiful."
"Republic of the West, Enlightened, free, sublime, Unquestionably best Production of our time."
"The objective world of science has nothing in common with the world of things-in-themselves of the metaphysician. The metaphysical world, assuming that it has any meaning at all, is irrelevant to science."
"Though there is discord between revolutionary agrarianism and collectivism, they are alike in opposition to the uniform teaching and tradition of the Catholic Church on the lawfulness of private ownership of income-yielding property, whether it be named "land" or "capital". And they are alike in opposition to the ideal of all great statesmen from Solon to Leo XIII, namely, flourishing populations of small farmers or peasants."
"At the end of the day, we are all human beings and we all know what it means to be in love, to feel betrayed, to feel misunderstood."
"Two men had a conspicuous influence in creating and leading the Conservative movement: one was Pitt and the other was Burke. Pitt was the practical leader who headed the opposition to the French Revolution and behind whom the Toryism of George III, the natural conservatism of Burke, the zeal for the imperial greatness of the country, of which he himself was the best exponent, coalesced together and found their sphere of activity in resisting revolutionary France as the enemy of Church and King, the destroyer of all that was ordered and settled, the formidable enemy of the greatness and even the safety of England. And in Burke Conservatism found its first and perhaps its greatest teacher, who poured forth with extraordinary rhetorical power the language of an anti-revolutionary faith, and gave to the Conservative movement the dignity of a philosophical creed and the fervour of a religious crusade."
"The essential characteristic of a Tory is that in controversies relating to Church and King he takes the royal and ecclesiastical side."
"Probably no function of Conservatism is more important at the present time than to watch over the religious life of the people in the sphere of politics. Religion, as has been pointed out, touches politics very closely in respect to many questions—such as the claims of rich and poor, all measures for ameliorating the condition of the people, the connection between Church and State, and national education. Its indirect influence extends beyond these limits as far as any controversy which raises issues of moral obligation. The championship of religion is therefore the most important of the functions of Conservatism. It is the keystone of the arch upon which the whole fabric rests. As long as Conservatism makes the fulfilment of its duties to religion the first of its purposes, it will be saved from the two principal dangers that alternatively threaten it: the danger of sinking into a mere factious variation of Liberalism, supporting the claims of another set of politicians, but propounding measures not distinguished by any pervading principle: or the other danger of standing only for the defence of those who are well off, without any sincere endeavour to consider the interests of the whole people, or any higher object than the triumph of the sagacious selfishness of the prosperous. Religion is the standard by which the plans of politicians must be judged, and a religious purpose must purify their aims and methods. Emphasising this truth, Conservatism will be the creed neither of a superfluous faction nor of a selfish class."
"It is often assumed that Conservatism and Socialism are directly opposed. But this is not completely true. Modern Conservatism inherits the traditions of Toryism which are favourable to the activity and authority of the State. Indeed Mr. Herbert Spencer attacked Socialism as being in fact the revival of Toryism; he called it “the new Toryism.” And he was so far right, that Toryism was on the side of authority and that it was rather the Whigs, and still more the Liberals of the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century, who insisted on the dangers of State interference and the importance of the liberty of the individual."
"Historically the principle was adopted that every one must be saved from death by starvation or exposure, but that on the other hand no one ought to be supported by the State in idleness. This was the policy of Elizabeth's famous Act establishing the Poor Law. Nor is it unfair to claim the Poor Law as at any rate of Tory extraction. It was imposed by religious sentiment, and it was the solution of a difficulty caused by an attack on the Church. It arose out of the suffering which had been occasioned by the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, and by the consequent cessation of the relief of the poor which the monasteries had been wont to give. Under the Poor Law the State took over the work that had formerly been performed by the alms of the Church; and in so doing the State acted under the moral ascendency of Church teaching."
"For the tradition of authority is naturally a Tory tradition, and, but for the influence of Conservative prudence and justice, the successors of the Tories might probably have been ready to use the authority of the State with a freedom which we associate with Socialism."
"The value of human character, the sacredness of justice on the one side, reverence for authority and tenderness towards human suffering upon the other, make the religious standpoint at once the safest and the most practical for the task of social reform. Toryism even within itself contains balanced principles which make for safety, and when united with the prudence of the natural conservative it forms the most efficient and the most secure political guide for a social reformer."
"For the rest, he continued to be a brilliant figure in the social life of his time; his presence welcome, his conversation witty, his views original, his candour entertaining, his power of exposition remarkable, his charm unaffected. No sketch can hope to give the peculiar flavour of his personality, nor is it easy to disinter even from the vast chambers of the dead a parallel for him. Yet a Plutarch, in search of his compeer, might find in Montalembert—the Montalembert of Sainte-Beuve's portrait—enough points of resemblance to justify a comparison between two ardent devotees of liberty, and, according to their respective interpretations, of Catholicism."
""Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-ey'd sons of Achaia; Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember; Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders, Castor fleet in the car—Polydeukes brave with the cestus— Own dear brethren of mine—one parent lov'd us as infants. Are they not here in the host, from the shores of lov'd Lacedæmon, Or, tho' they came with the rest in ships that bound thro' the waters, Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes, All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awaken'd?" So said she;—they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, There, in their own dear land, their Father-land, Lacedæmon."
"The principle of the Church was, in one word, that which defines her own being—a divine authority establishing a kingdom, Jesus Christ, her Lord and Founder, living and acting in her. The consideration of the faith which she promulgated cannot be severed from that of her government and her worship."
"He was one in whom the poetical vein was tenderly blended with the philosopher's wisdom."
"There is much tenderness and beauty in many of the poems, but the writers wrote in a language which they did not command, but by which they were commanded, as all who try to write ancient Greek are."
"I would beg any possible, but improbable, reader who desires to peruse the Anthology as a whole, to read first the epigrams of Meleager's Stephanus, then those of that of Philippus, and finally the Byzantine poems. In the intervals the iron hand of History had entirely recast and changed the spirit and the language of Greece, and much misunderstanding has been caused by people quoting anything from the "Greek Anthology" as specifically "Greek." We have to deal with three ages almost as widely separated as the Roman conquest, the Saxon conquest, and the Norman conquest of England. It is true that the poems of all the epochs are written in a language that professes to be one, but this is only due to the consciousness of the learned Greeks, a consciousness we still respect in them to-day, that the glorious language of old Greece is their imperishable heritage, a heritage that the corruption of the ages should not be permitted to defile."