“Homegoroshi: The Japanese technique of humiliating a person with exaggerated compliments.”
Globe & Mail September 25, 2000
“History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Often attributed to Mark Twain in various forms (for instance “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme”) but there is no evidence that he said it (see for instance https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/) although he obviously should have.
“There’s this psychoanalytic adage: If you don’t understand the motivation, look at the consequences and infer the motivation.”
Jordan Peterson in a podcast with Michael Shellenberger (citing the example of Hitler wreaking murderous havoc then committing suicide).
“In 1913 a sign hung in the lobby of the Stag Hotel in Golden City, Ontario, stated succinctly, WE KNOW THIS HOTEL IS ON THE BUM. WHAT ABOUT YOURSELF?”
Peter Unwin in The Beaver October-November 2004
“Reach for the stars even if you have to stand on a cactus.”
Susan Longacre in “Quotable Quotes” in Reader’s Digest Canadian Edition March 2006
“That is what makes life at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us because it tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that we don’t fit. We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way.”
G.K. Chesterton in “The Ballad of a Strange Town” in Tremendous Trifles, quoted by Joseph Grabowski in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #11 (9-10/21)
“It wasn’t clear whether this was obvious, false, or possibly both.”
Peter Foster in National Post November 19, 1999 [specifically regarding Peter Drucker and entering a “knowledge society” but it applies amazingly widely].
“The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”
Titus Livius, aka “Livy” The Early History of Rome