"Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name." Samuel Butler Erewhon

"It is lack of confidence more than anything else that kills civilization." Sir Kenneth Clark, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe and Mail February 6, 2007

"There are some people who say that they want Socialism, but do not want bureaucracy. Such persons I leave in simple despair. How any calculating creature can think that we can extend the number of Government offices without extending the number of Government officials and the prevalence of the official mind, I cannot even conjecture. Some people look forward to a splendid transformation of the general human soul. That is a good argument for accepting Socialism – and, when one comes to think of it, an even better reason for doing without it." G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News January 2, 1909, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 20 # 1 (Sept.-Oct. 2016)

"People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after." Oliver Goldsmith, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Globe and Mail September 27 2000

"Doubt comes at the window, when inquiry is denied at the door." Benjamin Jowett

"Man must bow down to something." Fyodor Dostoevsky, quoted in Philip Yancey Soul Survivor

"I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it." Widely attributed to Groucho Marx but in 1962 he denied saying it in real life on leaving a party; he may have used it in a comedy routine but it almost certainly did not originate with him

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour." Truman Capote, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe & Mail December 14, 2007