Quotations

"We have to believe in free will; we have no choice." Isaac Bashevis Singer

Everything is different now

I was shocked, disgusted even, by the way Trump attacked Zelensky but just heard this interview in which left-wing journalist Max Blumenthal supports Trump 100%. I start to rethink. The Russians have not won and their cause was not just but yes we need peace very quickly and a neutral Ukraine. We did from the start. America is hugely to blame for this. So is the EU.

The horror! The horror!

Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, said of Gaza on CBS’s “Face the Nation” programme on Sunday that “the facts suggest that nobody can really live there in a safe environment for probably at least 15 years.”

Patriotism has nothing to do with values

Anne Maria Waters  (former leading figure in the British party UKIP) said today:

"It's very interesting to discover that "patriots" in Europe and America actually hate our beautiful Western civilisation and would prefer to live under the tyranny of monsters like Putin." 

I largely agree but want to say something about patriots.

I do not like Putin or what I suppose is his tyranny, but patriotism is nothing to do with civilisation - or democracy or values. 

It's simply love of ones country and ones forefathers.

Mr Trump reminds me of Enoch Powell talking about this with Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Philosophy Group at Peterhouse, Cambridge (the college I wish I'd gone to), as described by John Casey.

'Edward Norman (then Dean of Peterhouse) had attempted to mount a Christian argument for nuclear weapons. The discussion moved on to ‘Western values’. Mrs Thatcher said (in effect) that Norman had shown that the Bomb was necessary for the defence of our values. Powell: ‘No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government.’ Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): ‘Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.’ ‘No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.’ Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled. She had just been presented with the difference between Toryism and American Republicanism. (Mr Blair would have been equally baffled.)'

Quotations

'What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass..' Lord Melbourne (Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister, for readers who do not have the luck to be English).

'Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be prevenient courage that allows us to be brave – that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honour them is a great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing.' Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Stephen Kotkin, an eminent historian of Russia, gave an interview in which he observed that to achieve stated Ukrainian war goals – the total recovery of lost territory, Putin on trial – “you have to take Moscow”. In fact the Ukrainian leaders knew those goals were not going to be realised.

One page from Philip Short's magisterial 'Putin: His Life and Times' (2022) explains the Ukrainian war

I was travelling a lot and wanted to blog about my travels but have failed to do so. Perhaps I shall find time to write about it. 

Meanwhile, I recently reread the parts of Philip Short's long and magisterial Putin: His Life and Times (2022) that touch on Ukraine and want you to read this one page, about the situation in late 2013.

Quotations

'Here's a direct quote: "If I said what I know about both candidates, they'd have to cancel the election." That's what Jeffrey told me in 2016.' Mark Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein's brother, speaking to The New York Post 1 January, 2025

‘The trick is to survive success. Anyone can survive failure’ Tony Bennett

"If there is a God, his plan is very similar to someone not having a plan." Eddie Izzard

“Losers, like autodidacts, always have wider knowledge than winners, if you want to win you must know only one thing and don’t waste time knowing them all, the pleasure of erudition is reserved for losers. The more things one knows, the more things didn’t go the right way. " Umberto Eco

More quotations

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” 

Kurt Vonnegut

"Trump routinely deploys all the subversive transgressiveness that campus Leftists claim to value."

Camille Paglia

"If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe." 

Lord Salisbury

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 

Quotations

"What matters, in the end, is less whether a country is democratic or not, more whether the country is pro-American or anti-American."  Tom Cotton, Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire." Charles Bukowski

“We’re the first to pay a price for Trump’s election. [The deal] is being forced upon us … We thought we’d take control of northern Gaza, that they’d let us impede humanitarian aid.” Erel Segal, Israeli journalist

"People who think of conservatism as oppressive and dictatorial have some deviant example in mind, such as fascism, or Tsarist autocracy. I would offer in the place of such examples the ordinary life of European and American communities as described by 19th century novelists." Sir Roger Scruton

"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." Mark Twain. He wasn't similarly benign to the Indians. He thought them "a good, fair, desirable subject for extermination if ever there was one".

"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." Lin Yutang

"I used to think I was born in the wrong time... now I understand I'm here to keep the old ways alive." Anonymous internet meme