“There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself.”
Montaigne, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen To Go
“The important thing is not to win but to take part.”
The refounder of the Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, quoted in Maclean’s Dec, 7 1992
“‘I disagree,’ John Keats once wrote in a letter, about the world as a ‘vale of tears... Call the world, if you please, “the vale of soul-making.” Then you will find out the use of the world.’”
Thomas Boswell, How Life Imitates The World Series
“to illuminate the human soul.”
The task of historians as well as novelists according to British historian Cicely Veronica Wedgewood (1911-97), quoted in Quotes, Notes and Anecdotes (The Write File Quarterly) Spring 1997 and there attributed to her obituary in The Economist March 28, 1997
“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”
Rudyard Kipling, widely quoted online (including https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/225625-of-all-the-liars-in-the-world-sometimes-the-worst) [some sources have “your own fears”
“But by the mid-twentieth century, God was killed off in the public mind – or if not killed, then badly disabled…”
William D. Gairdner The Trouble With Democracy
“An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly anything.”
Goethe, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 17, 2006
In my latest National Post column I say if you don’t like people blocking access to hospitals and shouting at health care workers in over-the-top frustration, and I don’t, you must not excuse illegal “direct action” when you do support the cause.