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“...the real way of vanquishing scruples is to leave those who have them nothing to lose.”
― Les Liaisons dangereuses
― Les Liaisons dangereuses
“Russian bolshevism, replacing eastern Christendom by the grim religiosity of Marx, produced a caricature of the evangelical counsels with many a diabolical aspect. There is a good deal of “communism” in monasteries and convents, yet this is based upon a voluntary renunciation of perfect human rights. On account of our free will we can make supreme sacrifices which ennobles our very existence. Bolshevism on the other hand forces us brutally into a parody of monastic life amidst fellow monks and fellow nuns who hate their habit and sigh under the ferocious tyranny of their pseudo-abbot. This evil distortion of an otherwise Christian ideal is more satanic than wanton, a thoroughly pagan and diabolic opposition to Christian existence. This explains also the reason why the Vatican has found stronger words against “altruistic” bolshevism than against egoistic capitalism”
― The Menace of The Herd: Or, Procrustes at Large
― The Menace of The Herd: Or, Procrustes at Large
“Love, hatred, you have only to choose; they all sleep under the same roof; you can double your existence, caress with one hand and strike with the other.”
― Les Liaisons dangereuses
― Les Liaisons dangereuses
“By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on to which the alternative is a hopeless apathy, Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanised or brutalised control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.”
― Christianity and Culture
― Christianity and Culture
“In an egalitarian and democraticised society (in the broader sense of the term); in a society in which there are no longer any casts, functional organic classes or Orders; in a society in which ‘culture’ is standardised, extrinsic, utilitarian, and tradition is no longer a living, forming force; in a society in which Pindar’s ‘be thyself’ has become but a meaningless phrase;19 in a society in which character amounts to a luxury that only fools can afford, whereas inner weakness is the norm; in a society, finally, in which whatever lies above racial, ethnic and national difference has been replaced by what effectively lies below all this and which, therefore, has a shapeless and hybrid character — in such a society, forces are at work that in the long run are bound to influence the very constitution of individuals, thus affecting everything typical and differentiated, even in the psycho-physical field.”
― The Bow and the Club
― The Bow and the Club
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Vilena’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Vilena’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
368 books
|
44 friends
15,503 books
|
98 friends
4,355 books
|
109 friends
2,169 books
|
24 friends
5,105 books
|
759 friends
613 books
|
43 friends
1,885 books
|
37 friends
5,373 books
|
5,000 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Classics, Crime, Horror, Humor and Comedy, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Non-fiction, Paranormal, Science fiction, Suspense, Spirituality, Sports, Thriller, cult-classics, personal-development, dystopia, alternate-universe, health, nutrition, whodunit, legal-thriller, psychological-thriller, romantic-suspense, and lesbian-romance
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