“I do confess that I bring to the study of history the prejudices born of my experiences and imagination—who doesn’t—but I will not admit that this disqualifies me from seeing some bit of the truth about the past, even if only a bit.”
Source: Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry
“a gentleman today—however we may characterize him—may find his environment less congenial to his temperament.”
Source: Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry
“A gentleman, I hope it will become clear, is not simply a man who stands apart. He is a man who stands up for others—sometimes even for his enemies—often when those others have no clue that he is there for them.”
Source: Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry
“Societal civility is the extension and expansion of individual gallantry: it’s all about—or ought to be about—balance and restraint”
Source: Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry
“Chivalry was more an ambition than an accomplishment, but—and this is the important thing—it was the common ambition of increasing numbers of men, and it had the effect of elevating and concretizing their civil righteousness. Religion also did this.”
Source: Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry
“It is remarkable that chivalry, no matter how actual or merely aspirational it was in its own day, appeared when it did—that it appeared at all!”
Source: Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry
“Chivalry combined military, religious, and social concepts into a unified way of life.”
Source: Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry
“What kind of society do we want? We want a society of independent intelligent people where no one needs any shepherd or a leader!”
“Any society is controlled by a web of feedback control mechanisms, from the private, then public opinion of colleagues to police rapid-response teams, all of which limits and guides the actions of the society's members. A few years of exotic living spent free of such controls are usually sufficient for personal character quirks and obsessions, of whatever kind, to develop to levels that would be deemed pathological on one's home ground.”
Source: Notebooks from New Guinea: Field Notes of a Tropical Biologist
“Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.”