“Displacement of ends by means: The desire for a powerful government in order to pursue certain goals seems to have given way to desiring certain goals because they require a powerful government.”
J. Budziszewski "Underground Thomist" email Feb. 25, 2019.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
This quotation is hard to source because it seems to originate with Roger Sessions in 1950. But Sessions said Einstein had said it "in effect" and since then it has been very widely attributed to Einstein because who ever heard of Roger Sessions (I hadn’t; turns out he was a composer) whereas Einstein’s the guy with the giant brain and hairdo to match. The Quote Investigator says while Einstein did express this idea at various times it is probably Sessions who, while deflecting the credit, actually created the concise, beloved and much quoted version above.
“You would indeed be fortunate to get this person to work for you.”
A recommended line in a letter of recommendation for a lazy employee (I found it here but do not know where it originated).
“statistics, a term which for most people is synonymous with ‘migraine.’”
William Watson in National Post Nov. 27, 2001
In my latest National Post column I say the possibly entry of John Baird into the Tory leadership race as a self-proclaimed “true blue” candidate who’s also modern raises the question of what exactly he thinks he believes… if anything. OK. Never mind exactly. Can we at least get a vague notion?
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
E.F. Schumacher, "Small is Beautiful" (August 1973).
BTW this statement is often attributed to Albert Einstein, an online quotation magnet (like Abraham Lincoln, who famously warned us "Don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it).
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the recent revelation that some 38 federal government departments mishandled over 5,000 sensitive documents last year tells us nothing we didn’t already know, and possibly less.