“Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.”

Iris Murdoch, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail October 4, 2002

“May you live through interesting times.”

Another of mine, from September 13 2001 (and yes, adapted from the supposed Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times.”)

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“A charitable view is that [Alan] Greenspan is what Karl Popper called a ‘historicist’ – one who believes the way people respond to incentives changes, so that economic models true last year are no longer true today…. But, what looks like an open and forward-looking mind may be, as Popper suggested, nothing more than a mind without bearings.”

Filip Palda in Ottawa Citizen March 17, 2000

“Knowing that a feeling exists is not the same as having the feeling.”

A friend paraphrasing John Stuart Mill (date not recorded).

“There’s nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway.”

“Mark Burnett on ‘Dateline NBC’” quoted as “Quotable Quotes” in Reader’s Digest Canadian Edition July 2005

“By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences.”

C.S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters

“If you don’t knit, bring a book.”

“Dorothy Parker’s advice” for surviving something terminally dull, quoted by John Ivison in National Post February 22, 2005

“Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not ‘This is a misfortune,’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’”

Marcus Aurelius, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail September 11, 2002