TWE

Prayer by Malcolm Muggeridge: God, humble my pride, extinguish the last stirrings of my Ego, obliterate whatever remains of worldly ambition and carnality, and help me to serve only thy purpose, to speak and write only Thy words, to think only Thy thoughts, to have no other prayer than '

I'm going to memorize your name, then throw away my head. Oscar Levant, speaking to a disagreeable store clerk.

"Happy the people whose annals are boring to read." Montesquieu

"A writer should remember that about his Muse there is a good deal of the Siren. He should view his mental offspring as relentlessly as a Spartan father–if it is not perfectly sound, let it be cast out. If he does not expose it, others will, in a

Note to Readers: I will be off-line for awhile. My blog will not be updated for a few days.

Excerpt It was also the anniversary date of the release of Elvis's first number one hit, "Heartbreak Hotel," so we talked about Elvis. All of us are fans. Gotta be. We were in middle school when Elvis died, and every cultural event that happens when you&

"Social changes which propel dubious characters in great numbers into ruling positions make the political environment unlivable for well-bred men with some self-respect." Eric Voegelin, Plato and Aristotle, 288-289.

Orestes Brownson's Conversion When Brownson started taking concrete steps toward Rome, it was philosophy that paved the road. His was a philosophical conversion, Rome via Athens, though he would later emphasize that no mental process can ever produce a convert unless grace is also at work (philosophy can

"The man who can wholeheartedly believe that all things are created by God and that God does not create evil, is freed from many burdens, and one of them is fear." Paul Gallico, writing about St. Francis of Assisi.

Laughter is the mind sneezing. Wyndham Lewis