“Perfection is not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, quoted in The Economist June 15, 1991
“We must not provide against the loss of wealth by poverty, or of friends by refusing all acquaintance, or of children by having none, but by morality and reason.”
Plutarkhos, aka Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus Plutarch’s Lives Vol. I
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Not Albert Einstein. As he is a quotation magnet it has stuck to him quite often, but apparently it was actually sociology professor William Bruce Cameron in 1963 (see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/26/everything-counts-einstein/). Would it be any more clever if it had been Einstein?
In my latest National Post column I lament Forbes’ characteristic attempt to stuff Michael Shellenberger’s brave apology for excessive climate alarmism down the memory hole
“I have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection, and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy, and whose great attribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained.”
Charles Dickens Oliver Twist
Something has been “making you behave as if we were distant acquaintances and you were trying to increase the distance.”
One of the characters in P.G. Wodehouse Do Butlers Burgle Banks?
In my latest National Post column I say when the rule of law no longer applies either to the powerful or to the mob it’s not social justice or any other kind.