“‘Let there be light!’ said God, and there was light! ‘Let there be blood,’ says man, and there’s a sea!’”
Lord Byron “Don Juan” quoted in Orlo Miller The Donnellys Must Die
“a lion can spot a limp.”
Quoted in an email from a reader this fall, on the subject of foreign policy but sourced to “something I heard an ex-convict say about the danger of exhibiting weakness in prison.”
In my latest Epoch Times column, I say recent revelations about national security breaches and governmental nonchalance ought to worry Canadians a lot more than they apparently do.
In my latest Mercatornet article I say the Capitol hill riot resulted from unchecked hatred in the human heart, and should not be the trigger for more of the same from anyone.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the task now for everyone is to find a constructive way forward, not to retreat further into sneering tribalism.
“The common theme of the essays that make up this book is that the proper design of public policies requires a clear and sober understanding of the nature of man and, in particular, of the extent to which that nature can be changed by plan.”
1st sentence of author’s Introduction to James Q. Wilson Thinking About Crime Revised Edition
“I argue for a sober view of man and his institutions that would permit reasonable things to be accomplished, foolish things abandoned, and utopian things forgotten. A sober view of man requires a modest definition of progress.”
James Q. Wilson Thinking About Crime
“The criminologist and sociologists are right, then, when they tell us that man is a ‘cooperating animal.’ But what they rarely realize is that cooperation only works if someone is willing to punish infractions. It must be done as a purely neutral phenomenon, with the punishment fitting the crime, not the criminal. Ideally, every individual should carry with him the remorseless sense that somewhere someone cares whether they break the law.”
William Tucker Vigilante: The Backlash Against Crime in America