People who actually study history know that history doesn’t pick sides.

-Tom Simon

There are lies, damned lies, then there are fact checkers!

-commenter Greg Mockeridge on this post

I find it particularly ironic that the same people who look down their noses at the Middle Ages are quick to criticize nothing about foreign civilizations and spout platitudes such as "We can't judge them by our standards. We don't understand their culture fully; if we did, we'd see how great it is."

So the response to those complaining about the Middle Ages should be "Did you just assume your culture is superior? You can't judge the Middle Ages by your cultural standards."

Of course, spotting the pattern, the accepted biases are generally just veiled anti-Christianity and/or misguided belief in the noble savage...

-commenter LugNut22 on John C. Wright's blog

If today is always the best of times, then it must be better than yesterday, and the best always yet to come. All is progress: Rome never fell; it ascended. Humans never sinned; they discovered. The dog never returned to its vomit; it upcycled and reused and reduced its footprint until the world became better than Eden could ever have been.

-commenter Josh on John C. Wright's blog

One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic"
That can be turned into today's world:
"School shooting is a tragedy; baby killing is a statistic"

-Commenter Darrin on this article

I just looked at the synonyms for "rigid," and saw "unyielding." That made me think of all of those "unyielding" individuals who won't let go of the 1970s; cling to the memory of dissident clergy and religious; and won't give up on tired, over-worn, and failed ideologies.

-Commenter on this Facebook post

All masses are re-enactments of Calvary. Unfortunately, some are so in more ways than one.

-Commenter bill912 on Jimmy Akin's blog

"The claim that proofs must be agreed on is one of my pet peeves; it is equivalent to claiming that no one can determine what's rational except the least rational people in the discussion."

Blog comment I came across that is very true....

[Source]

Commenter Patti Sheffield, in response to a historically illiterate meme on the "pagan" origins of Christian holidays and other things:

"Silly pagans. Everything is pagan before it's baptized."

Of course, for the meme in question and the examples it chose, many were not in fact pagan (as the meme understands that word) in origin anyway, and so the meme was what is technically known as "wrong"...What a shock, I know! The Internet isn't infallible and you can't believe everything you see on it? Who would have thought?.....But even granting for the sake of argument that they were accurate....yeah, that comment basically nails the stupidity of the meme. Or, as G.K. Chesterton put it:

"It is often said by the critics of Christian origins that certain ritual feasts, processions or dances are really of pagan origin. They might as well say that our legs are of pagan origin. Nobody ever disputed that humanity was human before it was Christian; and no Church manufactured the legs with which men walked or danced, either in a pilgrimage or a ballet. What can really be maintained, so as to carry not a little conviction, is this: that where such a Church has existed it has preserved not only the processions but the dances; not only the cathedral but the carnival. One of the chief claims of Christian civilisation is to have preserved things of pagan origin. In short, in the old religious countries men continue to dance; while in the new scientific cities they are often content to drudge." (The Superstition of Divorce, 1920)

The ancient saying, “The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops,” may need a modern addendum: "The road to hell is paved for pastoral reasons."

-commenter Leo Wong on the OnePeterFive website

"I hope that, should pop Atheism ever becomes more mainstream, appeals to Brute Facts will be allowed in courts of law."

-commenter on Edward Feser's blog

From a comment on Edward Feser's blog by "Mr. Green":

MR. GREEN: No sane person would take David Hume seriously!!!
MAN IN THE STREET: What? Take whom seriously?
MR. GREEN: No, don't!
MAN: Don't what?
MR. GREEN: Don't take Hume seriously.
MAN: That's what I want to know — whom?
MR. GREEN: Yes, Hume!
MAN: So will you tell me — whom do you mean??
MR. GREEN: Of course.
MAN: OK. Then tell me.
MR. GREEN: Tell you what?
MAN: No, tell me whom!
MR. GREEN: Um... [holding my head] I can't!
MAN: I. Kant? Oh, man, what a crackpot. No sane philosopher should take him seriously!

In the long run, it’s not the side that can inflict the most damage, but the side that can bear the most suffering that inevitably wins. History leaves no doubt that people of faith are unmatched in enduring hardships

-commenter Brian Niemeier on John C. Wright's blog (April 7, 2014)

"Progressives hate the idea that Peter and the Apostles can bind. Traditionalists cannot fathom that Peter and the Apostles can loosen."

-reader of Mark Shea's blog

[Needless to say, those terms need qualification. For instance, for "Traditionalists" such as sedevacantists, such a saying would be applicable to, but a member of the FSSP would be different]

Just reading through the comments on a blog, I came across a quote that (quite apart from its immediate context in the specific argument) is such that I have to remember. lol.

"[He] is a remarkable man. He has the rare gift of being able to build a straw man using straw that has already been through the horse."

-Tom Simon (commenter on John Wright's blog )

" 'Slippery Slope fallacy' - the modern term for the act of correctly identifying the logical implications of a proposition."

-Commenter "The Deuce" on Mike Flynn's blog

"What a strange world we moderns have created, where everything is permissible, and nothing is forgivable"

What a strange world we moderns have created, where everything is permissible, and nothing is forgivable

-commenter on Mark Shea's blog a couple of years ago