Wednesday, August 15, 2012

"A false notion which is clear and precise will always have more power in the world than a true principle which is obscure or involved."

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     Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America I (1835).I.VIII.22 ("Why the federal system is not practicable for all nations, and ...

"Great wealth and extreme poverty, capital cities of large size, a lax morality, selfishness, and antagonism of interests are the dangers which almost inevitably arise from the magnitude of states."

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     Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America I (1835).I.VIII.21 ("Advantages of the federal system in general, and its special uti...
Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The "conclusion that [the] death [penalty] is irrelevant to rehabilitation . . . stems from changes in our understanding of rehabilitation."

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     "Courts and scholars have long concluded that [rehabilitation] does not [apply in the capital context] — that death is completely...
Sunday, August 12, 2012

Be not afraid!

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"Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power[!]  Help the Pope and all those who wish to serve Chri...

Be not afraid!, or Love alone is credible

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Rubens, Saturn devouring his son  ( 1636).      "At least a few moments of such pure enjoyment were necessary to alleviate the othe...
Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Lockwood O'Donovan on "the more problematic aspects of [our] political future"

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"In the prevailing civil cult of European politics today, the final public good, which is the measure of all the others, is the self-de...
Sunday, August 5, 2012

". . . it was his great good fortune/to live a madman, and die sane."

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     Sansón Carrasco's epitaph for Don Quixote, in Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote II.lxxiv (trans. Edith Grossman (New York: HarperC...