The gods of the hearth

Re vera, solis illis, qui focum sacrum esse habent, umquam erit regula vel norma quibus respublica frenetur. Soli illi possunt aliquos provocare sanctiores dis urbanis, deos foci. Quare mirantur homines videre illas nationes, quæ severæ putantur in rebus domesticis, simul indomitas putari in rebus publicis, exemplo Hiberni ac Franci.

 

The truth is that only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticize the state. They alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city; the gods of the hearth. That is why men are mystified in seeing that the same nations that are thought rigid in domesticity are also thought restless in politics; for instance the Irish and the French.

 

—G. K. Chesterton, De Viro Sempiterno (The Everlasting Man)