“Ideological ugliness in the name of egalitarianism continues to do damage, with the paradoxical result that it increases inequality: for as it destroys beauty and elegance, so beauty and elegance become ever more rarefied and available to a smaller and smaller elite, and this is so even where income and consumption increase. The standard of living rises while the quality of life falls.”

~Theodore Dalrymple

“I am becoming orthodox," I said, "because I have come, rightly or wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief that heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than a crime, for an error begets crimes.”

~G.K. Chesterton

“It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?”

~Thomas Merton

“Floods will rob us of one thing, fire of another. These are conditions of our existence which we cannot change. What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit as befits a good person, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature’s.”

~Seneca

"The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances."

~Aristotle

“Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.”

~Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

~George Orwell

"I despise politics wholeheartedly. I am convinced that 99% of politics are mere symptoms and anything but a cure for social evils. About 50% of politics is definitely obnoxious inasmuch as it poisons the utterly incompetent mind of the masses."

~Carl Jung

'If humanism amounts to the process whereby the idea that man is created in the Divine image is gradually eroded, then modernism is the process whereby man's theomorphic nature is finally eradicated. Once this has been achieved, as the last century bears witness, only questions of technique remain—hence the machine; hence the whole industrial milieu; hence man's alienation from nature and the modern world as we know it.' - Brian Keeble

'A Machine is not a Man nor Work of Art; it is destructive of Humanity and of Art' - William Blake

“According to materialism, men are like little flies in hot weather. They crowd one another in a vast swarm, push one another, fly around in confusion, mate, feed and warm themselves, and then disappear in a disordered process, only to give space to tomorrow’s swarm of exactly the same kind.”

~Father I. Vino­gradov

"The traditions of humanity support humanity and the central one is this tradition of Marriage. And the essential of it is that a free man and a free woman choose to found on earth the only voluntary state; the only state which creates and which loves its citizens. So long as these real responsible beings stand together, they can survive all the vast changes, deadlocks, and disappointments which make up mere political history."

~G.K. Chesterton

“Art has always been about trying to alleviate the pain of existence. Modern art collaborates with misery as opposed to trying to oppose it. A painting by Titian is like a Leningrad, holding out against the forces of the world—even if they’re having to eat rats in there, they still will never surrender to it—whereas the art of Tracey Emin is a complete capitulation to the world. Cutting a shark in half and putting it in a tank of piss is just art giving up. I find it very odd when they describe art as challenging, because I always thought art was meant to calm you like a lullaby, not challenge you like some skinhead in an underpass.”

~Alexander Stoddart

"My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it. It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it. It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide. But who is to rid it of these things? There is no one but you."

"This is agony, Lord, have pity on me! See, I do not hide my wounds from you; You are the Physician and I am sick; You are Merciful, I in need of mercy."

+Saint Augustine

"We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible."

~Thomas Merton

“If a man relies wholly upon his private rational powers, he will lose his faith—and perhaps the world as well, risking his nature at the devil’s chess-game. But if a man fortifies himself with normative discipline, he draws upon the imagination and the lessons of the ages, and so is fit to confront even a diabolical adversary."

~Russell Kirk

"The only thing that matters today is the activity of those who can "ride the wave" and remain firm in their principles, unmoved by any concessions and indifferent to the fevers, the convulsions, the superstitions that characterize modern generations... Not letting oneself go is what is crucial today. In this society gone astray, one must be capable of the luxury of having a character."

~Julius Evola

"Your life on earth is narrowed everywhere. Everything betrays you: people, wealth, the pleasures of the senses, even your own body will abandon you. All the elements of nature deceive you. So, see to cleave only to God, for only He is love."

+Saint John of Kronstadt

“Modern mass culture, aimed at the “consumer”, the civilization of prosthetics, is crippling people’s souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being.”

~Andrei Tarkovsky

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

~Leo Tolstoy