“The mark of the barbarian, as it seems to me, is that he accepts no judgment outside himself. If opinion on his actions is not as he would wish it to be, he appeals to force.” G.K. Chesterton in an interview with The Jewish Chronicle September 22, 1933

“But, as a famous old saying by a great nineteenth-century con man has it, ‘It’s much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away.’ Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free.” Peter F. Drucker, Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices

“It is proper to demand more from the man with exceptional advantages than from the man without them. A heavy moral obligation rests upon the man of means and upon the man of education to do their full duty by their country. On no class does this obligation rest more heavily than upon the men with a collegiate education, the men who are graduates of our universities. Their education gives them no right to feel the least superiority over any of their fellow-citizens; but it certainly ought to make them feel that they should stand foremost in the honorable effort to serve the whole public by doing their duty as Americans in the body politic…” Theodore Roosevelt in The Atlantic Monthly August 1894

“Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.” Max Beerbohm

“‘Religion’ has been credited with fearsome pharmaceutical power. Communism calls it ‘the opiate of the people’ – brands it an addictive and debilitating drug. But our cheerfully consumerist society sometimes – and in the oddest places – welcomes ‘religion’ as a possible minor remedy, akin to a tummy mint. For instance, a recent book on women’s health has among its 400 pages a half-page on religion: In a chapter on ‘Stress,’ religion is offered as a stress reliever. It’s well down the list, coming after ‘Flexibility’ and ‘Decreasing Perfectionism’ and ‘Sense of Humor’ and ‘Education’ and ‘Expand Your Leisure and Creative Activities.’ If these don’t work, there is ‘The Importance of Religious Beliefs and Commitment.’ And what sort of belief and commitment are recommended for stress-busting? Two case histories are given: One lady volunteered to work at her synagogue and felt more involved; another wrote some goddess poetry and felt more empowered. As the old hymn has it, ‘Amazing goddess poetry, how sweet the sound, that saves a wretch like me.’ And when Jesus promised that the truth would make us free, did He mean wrinkle-free? The women’s magazines and girls’ magazines (Self and Seventeen, for instance) occasionally recommend meditation and prayer, much to the casual reader’s surprise. The purpose, it turns out, is the preservation of epidermal smoothness: You meditate and pray, you relax, you don’t scrunch up your face, hence you get fewer wrinkles.” New Oxford Review, Vol. LXVI #10 (November 1999)

“The satirist should dine alone, as much mistrusted by the left as by the right.” Al Martinez in the Los Angeles Times, quoted by “Social Studies” in the Globe & Mail July 13, 2004

“All wars arise from love or lust: the good man loves his country, or the bad man lusts after someone else’s country.”

G.K. Chesterton in Daily News September 14, 1907, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 9 #5 (March 2006)

“The ‘wild’ west is ‘wild’ on purpose: that is, it is civilization on a holiday—one of the most civilized things possible. But barbarism trying to be ‘cultured’ – that is the real horror.” George Santayana “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy” (a 1932 lecture at the University of California)