HONORARY ADVISORY BOARD

We draw inspiration from these historic pioneers whose lives span the last 2,000 years — and whose attitudes, actions, and beliefs are imbued throughout the stories we aim to tell.

Sir Sidney Poitier

Artist. Man. American. 1927–2022

CHAPEL LILY

“I've learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. There is a certain anger: it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage — self destructive, destroy the world rage — and its flame burns because the world is so unjust. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness.”

biography

Sir Roger Scruton

English philosopher, writer and oenophile. 1944–2020

AUDACIOUS CONSERVATEUR

“Beauty is an ultimate value — something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations.”

biography

René Noël Théophile Girard

French historian, literary critic, and philosopher. 1923–2015

Marvelous mimesis mollifier

“True freedom lies in the basic choice between a human or a divine model.”

encOmium

Malcolm Muggeridge

British journalist & satirist. 1903–1990

PERIPATETIC GARGOYLE ADMIRER

“Well was the camera originally named obscura. It is the ego's very focus, with all the narcissism of the human race concentrated into its tiny aperture. It advances upon one in a television studio like some ferocious monster, ravening and bloodshot eyed. Of all the inventions of our time it is likely to prove the most destructive. Whereas nuclear power can only reduce us and our world to a cinder, the camera grinds us down to spiritual dust so fine that a puff of wind scatters it, leaving nothing behind.”

biography

Flannery O’Connor

American novelist. 1925–1964

BRUTALLY GRACEFUL RACONTEUR

“The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.”

biOgraphy

Whittaker Chambers

American editor. 1901–1961

RELUCTANT “RED-HERRING” WITNESS

“As I continued to pray raggedly, prayer ceased to be an awkward and self-conscious act. It became a daily need to which I looked forward. If, for any reason, I were deprived of it, I was distressed as if I had been deprived of some life necessity, like water. I cannot say I changed. There tore through me a transformation with the force of a river, which, dammed up and diverted for a lifetime, bursts its way back to its true channel. I became what I was. I ceased to be what I was not.”

biography

María del Carmen Serdán Alatriste

Heroine of the Mexican Revolution. 1875–1948

GRACEFULLY FIERCE RADICAL

“Mas vale morir de pie que vivir arrodillado.”

biOgraphy

Etty HillesuM

Dutch mystic of the Holocaust. 1914–1943

PROTECTOR OF BEAUTY AND LOVE

“I know that a new and kinder day will come. I would so much like to live on, if only to express all the love I carry within me. And there is only one way of preparing the new age, by living it even now in our hearts.”

biOgraphy

G.K. Chesterton

English journalist & apologist. 1874–1936

OVERGROWN CIGAR-SMOKING ELF

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

Biography

Theodore Roosevelt

American statesman & writer. 1858–1919

BULL MOOSE WRANGLER

“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”

BioGRAPHY

Harriet Tubman

American abolitionist. 1820–1913

UNDYING TRAIN CONDUCTOR

“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was such glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees and I felt like I was in heaven.”