Merc > Merc's Quotes

“Hope clouds observation.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.
If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.”
― Edward Shillito

“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
― Augustine

“International peace means a peace between nations, not a peace after the destruction of nations, like the Buddhist peace after the destruction of personality. The golden age of the good European is like the heaven of the Christian: it is a place where people will love each other; not like the heaven of the Hindu, a place where they will be each other.”
― G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“Another savage trait of our time is the disposition to talk about material substances instead of about ideas. The old civilisation talked about the sin of gluttony or excess. We talk about the Problem of Drink--as if drink could be a problem. When people have come to call the problem of human intemperance the Problem of Drink, and to talk about curing it by attacking the drink traffic, they have reached quite a dim stage of barbarism. The thing is an inverted form of fetish worship; it is no sillier to say that a bottle is a god than to say that a bottle is a devil. The people who talk about the curse of drink will probably progress down that dark hill. In a little while we shall have them calling the practice of wife-beating the Problem of Pokers; the habit of housebreaking will be called the Problem of the Skeleton-Key Trade; and for all I know they may try to prevent forgery by shutting up all the stationers' shops by Act of Parliament.”
― G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember professionals built the Titanic but an amateur built the ark.”
― Father Brown

“He who wills to reject nothing, wills the destruction of will; for will is not only the choice of something, but the rejection of almost everything.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Religion may be defined as that which puts first things first.”
Illustrated London News, April 26, 1930”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume 12: The Father Brown Stories, Volume I

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ”
― Aristotle, Politics

“What is youth? A dream. What is love? The dream’s content.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

“It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”
― Julius Caesar

“The blood of the heroes is closer to God than the ink of the philosophers and the prayers of the faithful.”
― Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World

“America ... has created a 'civilization' that represents an exact contradiction of the ancient European tradition. It has introduced the religion of praxis and productivity; it has put the quest for profit, great industrial production, and mechanical, visible, and quantitative achievements over any other interest. It has generated a soulless greatness of a purely technological and collective nature, lacking any background of transcendence, inner light, and true spirituality. America has [built a society where] man becomes a mere instrument of production and material productivity within a conformist social conglomerate”
― Julius Evola

“No idea is as absurd as the idea of progress.”
― Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World