“Jack Cohen (a science writer and reproductive biologist), defined mankind not so much as Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but as Pan Narrans – the story-telling ape.”
John Thompson and Joe Turlej Other People’s Wars
“Asked what the key thing is that poor countries should do, Cowperthwaite once remarked: ‘They should abolish the Office of National Statistics.’”
Alex Singleton’s obituary of former Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite in Fraser Forum October 2006
“Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. There are some mistakes that just can’t be corrected.”
A retired high school teacher quoted by Dave Brown in the Ottawa Citizen September 12, 1998
“Hasten slowly.”
Suetonius, quoted in Patrick Hughes and George Brecht, Vicious Circles and Infinity
“It is quite certain that there is no good without the knowledge of God; that the closer one comes, the happier one is, and that ultimate happiness is to know him with certainty; that the further away one goes, the more unhappy one is, and that ultimate unhappiness would be to be certain of the opposite [to him].”
Pascal Pensées
“That fellow was bred by a buzzard and hatched by the sun.”
Whit Boykin quoted by Reid Buckley in National Review April 21, 1997
“What affects men sharply about a foreign nation is not so much finding or not finding familiar things; it is rather not finding them in the familiar place.”
G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 No. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 2000)
“One of the worst things about life is not how nasty the nasty people are. You know that already. It is how nasty the nice people can be.”
Anthony Powell, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail June 5 2000