John Mark Reynolds quotes:

The Romans were a strong power before Virgil, but the Greeks had captured their imaginations. While Rome conquered physical Greece, Greek mythology had enveloped Rome. The Empire coul be confident in itself until a Roman poet matched Homer and harmonized Greek civilization with Roman ideals

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.

For Aristotle, it's not enough simply to act in accordance with the reason once in a while. We must cultivate habits of virtue that develop into a firmly established moral character over a lifetime.

What makes Geoffrey Chaucer such compelling reading is his creation of a riveting conversation between the ideal and the everyday.

Plato understood love as a powerful engine that can destroy mankind or turn us to the good. Christ made that turn possible, and Spenser shows what can be done in the human soul if we take it.

Chaucer, like Homer, writes about a journey, but as a Christian he has a different goal. Homer wanted to go home, but Chaucer's pilgrims want a place of man's true home: paradise

Try to get inside the world of Homer and see what it would be like to think with his view of reality. Only then can you begin to judge it, because only then do you really understand it.

I cannot recognize Christianity in his (Nietzsche's) rants against the church, but I do recognize too much of myself.

By reading older books we get a taste of the conversation of Heaven.