• G. K. Chesterton

    In truth there are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.

  • Seamus Heaney

    Late August, given heavy rain and sun

    For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.

    At first, just one, a glossy purple clot . . .

    Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it

    Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking

  • Philip Larkin

    Homage To A Government

    Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
    For lack of money, and it is all right.
    Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
    Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly
    We want the money for ourselves at home
    Instead of working. And this is all right.

    It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,
    But now it’s been decided nobody minds.
    The places are a long way off, not here,
    Which is all right, and from what we hear
    The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
    Next year we shall be easier in our minds.

    Next year we shall be living in a country
    That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
    The statues will be standing in the same
    Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
    Our children will not know it’s a different country.
    All we can hope to leave them now is money.

  • Rudyard Kipling

    THE Camel’s hump is an ugly lump
    Which well you may see at the Zoo;
    But uglier yet is the hump we get
    From having too little to do.

    Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,
    If we haven’t enough to do-oo-oo,
    We get the hump—
    Cameelious hump—
    The hump that is black and blue!

    We climb out of bed with a frouzly head,
    And a snarly-yarly voice.
    We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl
    At our bath and our boots and our toys;

    And there ought to be a corner for me
    (And I know’ there is one for you)
    When we get the hump—
    Cameelious hump—
    The hump that is black and blue!

    The cure for this ill is not to sit still,
    Or frowst with a book by the fire;
    But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,
    And dig till you gently perspire;

    And then you will find that the sun and the wind,
    And the Djinn of the Garden too,
    Have lifted the hump—
    The horrible hump—
    The hump that is black and blue!

    I get it as well as you-oo-oo
    If I haven’t enough to do-oo-oo!
    We all get hump—
    Cameelious hump—
    Kiddies and grown-ups too!

  • G K Chesterton

    Some of the most civilized and highly organized cultures, like Carthage at its wealthiest, had human sacrifice at its worst. Culture, like science, is no protection against demons.

  • President Reagan

    The American Dream that we have nursed for so long in this country, and lately neglected, is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American Dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.