Under the old social philosophy which had governed the Middle Ages, temporal, and therefore all economic, activities were referred to an eternal standard. The production of wealth, it distribution and exchange were regulated with a view to securing the Christian life of Christian men. In two points especially was this felt: First in securing the independence of the family, which can only be done by the wide distribution of property, in others words the prevention of the growth of a proletariat; secondly, in the close connection between wealth and public function.

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.

The grace of God is courtesy.

When people call this beast to mind, They marvel more and more At such a little tail behind, So large a trunk before.

The Devil, having nothing else to do Went off to tempt my Lady Poltagrue. My Lady, tempted by a private whim, To his extreme annoyance, tempted him.

Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.

It was the Faith which gradually and indirectly transformed the slave into the serf, and the serf into the free peasant... You will not be able to set up in a pagan or an heretical or a wholly indifferent society the institutions characteristic of economic freedom; you will not be able to curb competition which alone would be sufficient to destroy such freedom, nor pursue permanently and consecutively any one part of the program. The thing must be done as a whole, and it can be done as a whole only by the ambient influence of Catholicism.