Paul Smith

“As John Courtney Murray put it, the obligations of society and the state are “not coextensive with the wider and higher range of obligations that rest upon the human person (not to speak of the Christian)”. And thus “the morality proper to the life and action of society and the state is not univocally the morality of personal life, or even of familial life. . . The effort to bring the organized action of politics and the practical art of statecraft under the control of the Christian values that govern personal and familial life is inherently fallacious.”
― George Weigel, The Fragility of Order: Catholic Reflections On Turbulent Times

“In 2013, one of the Cardinals’ rival scouting departments commissioned a study that examined draft outcomes more deeply still. The study, which extended back to 1990, found that if a club’s draft produces nine players who appear in the majors for even a single game, it ranks in the 95th percentile. The 95th percentile for number of everyday players—defined as those who go on to accumulate 1,500 big league plate appearances or batters faced—is four. The 95th percentile for number of firmly above-average players—that is, those who produce a cumulative Wins Above Replacement above 6.0 in their six cost-controlled, pre–free agency seasons—is three.”
― Ben Reiter, Astroball: The New Way to Win It All

“most lies are acted out, rather than told”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Almost all discussions involving politics or economics unfold in this manner, with each participant attempting to justify fixed, a priori positions instead of trying to learn something or to adopt a different frame (even for the novelty). It is for this reason that conservatives and liberals alike believe their positions to be self-evident, particularly as they become more extreme. Given certain temperamentally-based assumptions, a predictable conclusion emerges—but only when you ignore the fact that the assumptions themselves are mutable.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos