"mathematical economics is what is called in criminal circles 'a racket.'"

Stephen Leacock "Through a Glass Darkly” in On the Front Line of Life

"He fell so hard for her, he even lost his balance at the bank."

Kirk Kirkpatrick, quoted in The Write File Quarterly Issue #5, Summer 1995

In my latest National Post column I ask whether the purpose of "uniting the right" in Alberta was to implement conservative policies or to bury them.

"it is characteristic of political philosophers that they take a sombre view of the human situation: they deal in darkness. Human life in their writings appears, generally not as a feast or even as a journey, but as a predicament..."

Michael Oakeshott “Introduction to Leviathan” in Rationalism in politics and other essays

In my latest National Post column I wonder how federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau can say such dumb stuff and how we're meant to communicate intelligently with him if he does.

"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