“The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 No. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 2000)
“After more than two thousand years, the mothers of India still frighten their naughty children by telling them that ‘Iskander will get them,’ and Iskander is none other than Alexander the Great…”
Hendrik Van Loon The Story of Mankind
“as any engineer or architect will confirm, there is no such thing as a perfect design. Every solution represents an unhappy compromise among conflicting objectives.”
Michael Rothschild, Bionomics: The Inevitability of Capitalism
“As they say on the street, there is smart smart and then there is dumb smart.”
Richard John Neuhaus in First Things October 2001
“Count that day lost, whose low descending sun views from thy hand no worthy action done."
"Charles Stanford (1823-86)", quoted as "Thought du jour" in Globe & Mail Oct. 15, 1999
“’I should soon have given up a life of pleasure,’ they say, ‘if I had faith.’ But I tell you: ‘You would soon have faith if you gave up a life of pleasure….’”
Blaise Pascal Pensées
“The wheels have fallen apart with their momentum”
Announcer on a Minnesota North Stars game on TSN, March 3, 1992
“that native industry and perseverance common to all men when they are protected by a government which demands but little for its protection, when they are permitted to enjoy a system of rational laws founded on perfect freedom.”
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer