"Questionless, there is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue, and of this Economics is commonly esteemed not the least part…"
Plutarch’s Lives Vol. I p. 481.
"'How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked. 'Two ways,' Mike said. 'Gradually and then suddenly.'"
Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises (frequently misquoted or misattributed including to Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald according to www.sovereignman.com/offshore/slowly-at-first-then-all-at-once-12909, which warned that it applies to nations too)
"If you do not do what you say you will do, you can only rule, never lead."
"Thought for today” on the blackboard of the Pacific Coffee Company in Exchange Square, Hong Kong, quoted by Charles Gordon in Ottawa Citizen November 11, 1999
My latest piece in MercatorNet, based on a speech to the Augustine College Summer Conference (and an earlier National Post column and upcoming Dorchester Review article) asks how a society as devoted to "choice" as our own can at the same time so relentlessly restrict choice.
"When I was 17, I read a quote somewhere that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And when the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."
Steve Jobs, June 12, 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, reprinted in National Post June 30, 2005
In my latest National Post column I say people enjoy the comforting blanket of political make-believe yet crave truth when reality intrudes.
"Every man desires to obtain additional wealth with as little sacrifice as possible."
Nassau Senior in 1836, quoted by Stephen Leacock in "What is Left of Adam Smith?" in On the Front Line of Life
In my latest National Post column I say the horrific fire in London's Grenfell Tower happening in public housing is a powerful warning against putting too much faith in government.