“‘Look there, a garden!’ said my college friend,/ The Tory member’s elder son, ‘and there!/ God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off,/ And keeps our Britain, whole within herself,/ A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled--/ Some sense of duty, something of a faith,/ Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,/ Some patient force to change them when we will,/ Some civic manhood firm against the crowd--/ But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat,/ The gravest citizen seems to lose his head,/ The king is scared, the soldier will not fight,/ The little boys begin to shoot and stab,/ A kingdom topples over with a shriek/ Like an old woman, and down rolls the world/ In mock heroics stranger than our own;/ Revolts, republics, revolutions, most/ No graver than a schoolboys’ barring out;/ Too comic for the serious things they are,/ Too solemn for the comic touches in them,/ Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream/ As some of theirs--God bless the narrow seas!/ I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.’”

Alfred Lord Tennyson “The Princess: Conclusion” in Alfred Tennyson: The Major Works

“I think you’re the opposite of a paranoid. I think you go around with the insane delusion that people like you.”

Woody Allen, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail June 2, 2003 [and yes, we’re all feeling squeamish about Allen now but it’s still a good line].

On “Counterpoint” with Tanya Granic Allen I discussed how to inspire future generations with the story of liberty.

“I have in my own fashion learned the lesson that life is effort, unremittingly repeated.”

Henry James, emailed by a friend and sourced to Henry James: A Life

“In 1867, Matthew Arnold heard the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of the Sea of Faith.”

Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character

“This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.”

Henry David Thoreau to his graduating class at Harvard, 1837, cited by Wendell Berry in a sermon reprinted in Harpers magazine March 1988

“A key tenet of standard economics is that making people happy is a simple matter of giving them more of what they like. But neuroscience shows that’s not true. The brain’s striatum quickly gets used to new stimuli and expects them to continue. People are on a treadmill in which only unexpected pleasures can make them happier. That explains why happiness of people in rich countries hasn’t increased despite higher living standards.”

Peter Coy in BusinessWeek, quoted in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail April 4, 2005

“the bullion is not worth the dive”

Rex Murphy in Globe & Mail July 15, 2000 (specifically regarding not bothering to decipher most rap lyrics).