“If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.”
La Rochefoucauld, quoted in Globe & Mail October 18, 1999
“People tell me they get depressed reading about the Middle East. Well, I get depressed writing about it. There’s supposed to be progress in human history, but the Middle East is moving backward.”
Leonard Stern in Ottawa Citizen January 17, 2009
“[T]he absorption of the man and the exclusion of other matters show not how dull the subject is, but how fascinating it is. Because a man refuses to come out of Eden, they assume that he is being detained in gaol.”
G.K. Chesterton on absorption in apparently trivial hobbies, in “A Defence of Bores,” in Alberto Manguel, ed., On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton
“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”
Confucius, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen to Go
“Presumably an Appalachian pin-up would be a moonshine girl.”
One of mine from January 5, 2000 – I don’t know if certain newspapers still have “Sunshine girls” but they did then.
In my latest National Post column I contrast various Ontario school boards’ grudging admission that some misguided students might celebrate the Queen with their mandatory embrace of every progressive occasion or pseudo-occasion.
“Look, I love [his] work. But have you seen the man trying to communicate without a script? He’s about as articulate as a bag of potato chips. Warren Beatty couldn’t win a debate with a mime.”
Richard Roper in the Chicago Sun-Times regarding a potential Beatty presidential run quoted in Globe & Mail September 7, 1999
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say Pierre Poilievre’s overwhelming victory in the Conservative leadership contest, and Jean Charest’s hollow showing, demonstrates yet again that snobbery is no antidote to populism.