"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?"
Maurice Freehill, quoted on www.hound-dog-media.com
“the remarkable way [Stanley] Hauerwas makes friends by arguing with people.”
Stephen H. Webb reviewing a Festschrift in Hauerwas' honor in First Things #160 (February 2006)
“Nearly all pessimism is insincere.”
G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 #3 (Dec. 2000)
“It seems to be the great business of life to create wants as fast as they are satisfied."
Samuel Johnson Adventurer 119 quoted in a footnote to my edition of Samuel Johnson The History of Rasselas
“’This thank you note is gonna be a challenge’ ‘Words don’t do it justice’”
Jon and Garfield contemplating a gift of a hideous clock in "Garfield" in Ottawa Citizen December 27, 2008
"There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever."
"Viggo Mortensen (1958-), Danish-American actor" quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail September 14, 2011
“Men are the same in all ages and in all countries. A few prejudices and customs excepted, the same passions lurk in our hearts at all times.”
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer
“More than a century ago, Sir Francis Galton, a pioneer of statistics, attended an English fair. More than 800 guessed the weight of a bull. The total sum, divided by the number of guessers gave the weight – to the pound. This phenomenon, which is also known as ‘the wisdom of many,’ explains why democratized stock markets, with more people drawing information from more independent sources, can better allocate capital than the isolated few.”
Reuven Brenner in National Post June 15, 2000