"The mark of civilization, says [Yale professor David] Gelernter, is the shortening of the list of reasons that justify taking human life. But now footnotes are being added to the list." Richard John Neuhaus in First Things January 2004

"This book argues that our civilization depends, not only for its origin but also for its preservation, on what can be precisely described only as the extended order of human cooperation, an order more commonly, if somewhat misleadingly, known as capitalism." First sentence in Friedrich Hayek The Fatal Conceit

"Sow a thought and you reap an act;/ Sow an act and you reap a habit;/ Sow a habit and you reap a character;/ Sow a character and you reap a destiny." "Anonymous" quoted by Michael Novak in Business as a Calling

"I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble." Agatha Christie (quoted as Thought du jour in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail August 6, 2001)

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Voltaire

"scrambling like a cat on a linoleum floor." MP Peter MacKay in 2002 (re a minister dealing badly with a crisis)

"The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon who is wasting fairyland." G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Kyro R. Lantsberger in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 9 #1 (September 2005)

"The demand for 'relevance' in what is studied has its lazy, philistine and intolerant sides. But relevance has always been sought by readers if not (for good reason) by writers of history, for without a knowledge of his links to the past man is a social amnesiac, intellectually and therefore to some extent emotionally rootless." J.R. Hale Renaissance Europe 1480-1520