Johan

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G.K. Chesterton
“Our friend Tuesday," said the President in a deep voice at once of quietude and volume, "our friend Tuesday doesn't seem to grasp the idea. He dresses up like a gentleman, but he seems to be too great a soul to behave like one. He insists on the ways of the stage conspirator. Now if a gentleman goes about London in a top hat and a frock-coat, no one need know that he is an anarchist. But if a gentleman puts on a top hat and a frock-coat, and then goes about on his hands and knees — well, he may attract attention. That's what Brother Gogol does. He goes about on his hands and knees with such inexhaustible diplomacy, that by this time he finds it quite difficult to walk upright."
"I am not good at goncealment," said Gogol sulkily, with a thick foreign accent; "I am not ashamed of the cause."
"Yes you are, my boy, and so is the cause of you," said the President good-naturedly. "You hide as much as anybody; but you can't do it, you see, you're such an ass! You try to combine two inconsistent methods. When a householder finds a man under his bed, he will probably pause to note the circumstance. But if he finds a man under his bed in a top hat, you will agree with me, my dear Tuesday, that he is not likely ever to forget it. Now when you were found under Admiral Biffin's bed—"
"I am not good at deception," said Tuesday gloomily, flushing.
"Right, my boy, right," said the President with a ponderous heartiness, "you aren't good at anything.”
G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

C.S. Lewis
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis
“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
C.S. Lewis

Quentin Crisp
“The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.”
Quentin Crisp

Leszek Kołakowski
“That being said, is there anything to say in support of utopian thinking? Everything, if the meaning of the word is somewhat restricted. If utopia means the highest set of values we want to defend and see implemented in social life, nothing prevents us from hanging on to all of them even if we know that they will never be perfectly compatible with each other. If utopia is a regulative idea of the optimum and not an assurance that we have mastered the skill to produce the optimum, then utopia is a necessary part of our thinking. But it would be a puerile fantasy to pretend that we know how to rid the world of scarcity, suffering, hatred, and injustice: nobody knows that. Whatever can be done in softening these conditions can be done only in specific points, on small scales, by inches. That this should be so unacceptable to the genuine utopian mentality which looks for the vision of the Last Day, the great leap, the final battle; everything else seems (and is, indeed) grey, boring, lacking pathos, requiring specific knowledge instead.”
Leszek Kołakowski

year in books
Hans
512 books | 94 friends

Jenny N...
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Matthia...
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Neven S...
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Judith
59 books | 448 friends

Zvi Wir...
1 book | 148 friends

Albert ...
2 books | 31 friends

Ivo
Ivo
1 book | 44 friends

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