Monday 20 April 2009

Wild virtues

While reading Daniel Hannan's "If you pay people to be poor, you'll never run out of poor people" blog post, I came across this lovely quote from G. K. Chesterton:
"When a religious scheme is shattered, it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity is often untruthful." - GK Chesterton

No comments:

Post a Comment