“But things aren’t all puppies and hugs either.”
Letter from Bonnie Tompkins (a “bar server” writing about the Ottawa antismoking bylaw) in Ottawa Citizen Dec. 27, 2001
"The contemplative life is often miserable. You should do more, think less and not watch yourself living."
Nicholas-Sebastien Chamfort, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Globe & Mail Oct. 22, 2002
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (quoted on https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/679-war-is-an-ugly-thing-but-not-the-ugliest-of)
"After the first silence the small man said to the other: 'Where does a wise man hide a pebble?' And the tall man answered in a low voice: 'On the beach.' The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: 'Where does a wise man hide a leaf?' And the other answered: 'In the forest.'"
G.K. Chesterton, Favorite Father Brown Stories
"Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up for work."
"U.S. artist Chuck Close" quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail August 19, 2008
"I allow that, if no Supreme Ruler exists, wise to form and potent to enforce the moral law, there is no sanction to any contract, virtual or even actual, against the will of prevalent power. On that hypothesis let any set of men be strong enough to set their duties at defiance, and they cease to be duties any longer.”
Edmund Burke An Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs
"a hotbed of cold feet."
George Will in National Post October 9, 2001 (a complicated metaphor applying to U.S. Senate Democrats over Iraq in 1991 what was said of "All Souls College, Oxford at the time of the 1956 Suez crisis")
"It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life…"
St. Augustine The City of God (speaking of "evil men")