Wonderland
John Tolkien (1892 – 1970):
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory.
I love only that which they defend.
(The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings, 1954)
John Kipling, 1897–1915
Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936):
My son was killed whilst laughing at some jest.
I would I knew what it was, it might serve me in a time when jests are few.
(A Son, Epitaphs of the War, 1914–18)
Josephine Kipling, 1892–99
Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936):
Her brows are bound with bracken-fronds,
And golden elf-locks fly above;
Her eyes are bright as diamonds
And bluer than the sky above.
In moccasins and deer-skin cloak,
Unfearing, free and fair she flits,
And lights her little damp-wood smoke
To show her Daddy where she flits.
For far—oh, very far behind,
So far she cannot call to him,
Comes Tegumai alone to find
The daughter that was all to him!
(Merrow Down, Just So Stories, 1902)
Alan Milne (1882 – 1956):
Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing.
Of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering. …
Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known. …
So, they went off together.
But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his bear will always be playing.
Christopher Milne, 1920–96
Eric Rauchway [Professor of History, University of California, Davis]:
When [Woodrow Wilson] was a university professor, he said that he feared that teaching woman was atrophying his mental muscles.
Woodrow Wilson (1856 – 1924):
We have made partners of the women in this war ...
Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?
(Appeal for Women's Suffrage, 1918)
Rupert Murdoch (1931):
[There’s] a real challenge to confront: a wave of censorship that seeks:This rigidly enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket on sensibility.
- to silence conversation,
- to stifle debate,
- to ultimately stop individuals and societies from realizing their potential.
To many people have fought too hard, in too many places, for freedom of speech to be suppressed by this awful woke orthodoxy. …
There are many goals still to come and challenges to overcome.
Well, I'm far from done.
(Acceptance Speech, Lifetime Achievement Award by the Australia Day Foundation UK, Australia House, 23 January 2021)
The Korean Fertility Crisis
Monetizing Your Children
Rawls' Theory of Justice
Criminalizing Poverty
Think with Pinker
Bruce Powell
