Quotes 26 Aug 17

Thomas Chalmers once said that the sermons of the Scottish Moderates were like a winter's day, short, clear, and cold. "The brevity," he said, "is good, and 

the clarity is better, but the coldness is fatal. Moonlight preaching ripens no harvest."

The insuperable objection to monarchy is that the king or queen is elevated, and respect is accorded, for no reason other than birth . . . No one who believes either in the claims of merit or in the pursuit of equality can defend the system.-Mervyn Jones, 1977. Quoted in 100 good reasons to be a Republican, "New Statesman", August 2000.

Well, what do you say to that?  I am just going to speak from the heart here.  What we have witnessed was a total eclipse of the facts. 

     --Don Lemon, CNN News anchorman 

      (His reaction to President Donald Trump's speech 

       at a rally in Phoenix Tuesday night.) 

      _CNN.Com_ [August 23, 2017], 

      "Don Lemon: Trump Speech A 'Total Eclipse Of The Facts'" 

“What is the effect of people coming into Europe in very large numbers who have not inherited the doubts and intuitions of Europeans? Nobody knows now, and nobody ever did. All we can be certain of is that it will have an effect. Putting tens of millions of people with their own sets of ideas and contradictions into a continent with its own set of ideas and contradictions is bound to have consequences. The presumption of those who believed in integration is that in time everybody who arrives will become like Europeans, a presumption made less likely by the fact that so many Europeans are unsure whether they want to be Europeans. A culture of self-doubt and self-distrust is uniquely unlikely to persuade others to adopt its stance. Meantime it is possible that many – at least – of the incomers will either hold fast to their own certainties or even, quite plausibly, attract Europeans in the generations to come with these certainties. It is also plausible that many of those who come will enjoy the lifestyle, will take part in the aspirations and the fruits of the economic uplift so long as it continues, and yet despise or disdain the culture into which they have come. They may use it – as President Erdogan memorably said of democracy – like a bus, and get off whenever it has taken them to their desired destination.  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe“Page 2