“In the time of to Augustine, the conversation in the West mostly had been a Christian reaction to outside ideas. After Augustine, the Great Conversation would be about his ideas for centuries.”
John Mark Reynolds“Some Christians believe the harder that one thinks, the colder faith will grow. Augustine grew more brilliant as he grew more pious, more creative as he became more orthodox. His period of heresy was imitative, but his traditional Christianity took mental risks.”
John Mark Reynolds“Boethius moved from considering history from the actor's point of view to a "timeless" eternal view. From the divine perspective, nothing is ever utterly lost, because all of life is possessed by God in the eternal now. Though time was gnawing away at Boethius and stealing all he valued, God was beyond time and loss. Gaining this philosophical vantage allowed the last Roman to become one of the first men of the Middle Ages.”
John Mark Reynolds“Past ages come to us in new ways. For instance, they bore or disturb us. The dead say things we would or could not say in ways that appall , bless, and startle us. Reading them is part of diversity. The easiest voices to ignore are those of the dead; nevertheless, they often on the ones we need most.”
John Mark Reynolds“The fundamentalist burns with anti-intellectual zeal, and in reaction sophists are often swollen up with intellectualism. The fundamentalist and the sophist justify their excesses by the sin of their opposite. Fundamentalism and sophistry give piety and philosophy bad reputations with society.”
John Mark Reynolds“It has never been easier to get books but never harder to find the quiet needed to study them.”
John Mark Reynolds“What makes Geoffrey Chaucer such compelling reading is his creation of a riveting conversation between the ideal and the everyday.”
John Mark Reynolds“In the time of to Augustine, the conversation in the West mostly had been a Christian reaction to outside ideas. After Augustine, the Great Conversation would be about his ideas for centuries.”
John Mark Reynolds“Austen knew nothing of our modern quest for equality. People are not numbers, and so they are never “equal.” Some folk are higher placed than others, have more money, were more fortunate in their parents, or are brighter. These gifts do not come to us by merit but by the unfathomable providence of God.”
John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization“Here (in Thomas Aquinas) is the mind that prepared the way for the scientific and industrial revolutions. Here is the mind that was Catholic enough to embrace any good idea, from wherever it came.”
John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization“Modernity gone wrong has isolated humanity and made human reason autonomous of (and dismissive toward) revelation.”
John Mark Reynolds, The Great Books Reader: Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization