"What Mr. Mencken says against democracy"

"CATHOLIC theology has nothing to do with democracy, for or against it, in the sense of a machinery of voting or a criticism of particular privileges. It is not committed to support what Whitman said for democracy, or even what Jefferson or Lincoln said for democracy. But it is absolutely committed to contradict what Mr. Mencken says against democracy. There will be Diocletian persecutions, there will be Dominican crusades, there will be rending of all religious peace and compromise, or even the end of civilization and the world, before the Catholic Church will admit that one single moron, or one single man, “is not worth saving.””

~G.K. Chesterton: The Thing. (H.L. Mencken remarked of certain ex-liberals, “They have come to realize that the morons whom they sweated to save do not want to be saved, and are not worth saving.”)

"The Rights of Man"

“DEMOCRACY swept Europe with the sabre when it was founded on the Rights of Man. It has done literally nothing at all since it has been founded only upon the wrongs of man, or, more strictly speaking, its recent failure has been due to its not admitting the existence of any rights or wrongs, or indeed of any humanity.”

~G.K. Chesterton:  Charles Dickens.

The Complete Thinker

Highly recommended!  The Complete Thinker: The Marvelous Mind of G.K. Chesterton. In The Complete Thinker, Dale Ahlquist looks to the wisdom of Chesterton to explain why modern man has lost his ability to think clearly.

Available here:

•  Ignatius Press

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"Three acres and a cow"

"UNDER the pressure of certain upper-class philosophies (or in other words, under the pressure of Hudge and Gudge) the average man has really become bewildered about the goal of his efforts; and his efforts, therefore, grow feebler and feebler. His simple notion of having a home of his own is derided as bourgeois, as sentimental, or as despicably Christian. Under various verbal forms he is recommended to go on to the streets—which is called Individualism; or to the work-house—which is called Collectivism. We shall consider this process somewhat more carefully in a moment. But it may be said here that Hudge and Gudge, or the governing class generally, will never fail for lack of some modern phrase to cover their ancient predominance. The great lords will refuse the English peasant his three acres and a cow on advanced grounds, if they cannot refuse it longer on reactionary grounds. They will deny him the three acres on grounds of State Ownership. They will forbid him the cow on grounds of humanitarianism."

~G.K. Chesterton:  What's Wrong with the World.

 

 

 
 

"He is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners"

“COMFORTS that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it.”

~G.K. Chesterton: in CommonWealth, 1933.

"The corruption of the great capitalists"

"I AM well aware that the word "property" has been defied in our time by the corruption of the great capitalists. One would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; but other people's. When they remove their neighbor's landmark, they also remove their own. A man who loves a little triangular field ought to love it because it is triangular; anyone who destroys the shape, by giving him more land, is a thief who has stolen a triangle. A man with the true poetry of possession wishes to see the wall where his garden meets Smith's garden; the hedge where his farm touches Brown's. He cannot see the shape of his own land unless he sees the edges of his neighbor's. It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem."

~G.K. Chesterton:  What's Wrong with the World.

"Society is so abnormal"

“OUR society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people’s property.”

~G.K. Chesterton: Commonwealth, Oct. 22, 1932.