"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." Marcus Aurelius
"We live in a wondrous time in which the strong is weak because of his moral scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity." Otto von Bismarck, quoted by Arnold Beichman in National Review January 28, 2002
In my latest National Post column, which made the front page, I say the little yellow ducks waved at anti-corruption protests in Russia, Brazil and elsewhere are dangerous to brittle tyrannies.
"he [André Malraux] was fond of quoting Napoleon’s proclamation, 'My life is quite a novel.'" Algis Valiunas reviewing Olivier Todd’s Malraux: A Life in National Review July 4, 2005 - and I suppose a "pithy" quotation fails if it requires an extensive gloss, but I have to add my reaction on reading this line, namely that if you ever notice such a thing about your own life you need to consider urgently the question "Yes but by which author?"
"The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilized man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do." G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News April 18, 1906, reprinted in Gilbert! Vol. 3 #5 (March 2000)
"It is lack of confidence more than anything else that kills civilization." Sir Kenneth Clark, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe and Mail February 6, 2007
In my latest National Post column I urge social democrats to talk to real people about real things, and listen to them. Things like that government isn't working very well.