"A country that does not respect the rights of its own people will not respect the rights of its neighbours."

Andrei Sakharov, quoted in Natan Sharansky with Ron Dermer The Case for Democracy

"The idea of liberty has ultimately a religious root; that is why men find it so easy to die for and so difficult to define. It refers finally to the fact that, while the oyster and the palm tree have to save their lives by law, man has to save his soul by choice."

G.K. Chesterton, “The Free Man,” in A Miscellany of Men, quoted in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 6 #3 (December 2002)

"No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it."

Theodore Roosevelt (when he was New York City Police Commissioner)

In my latest National Post column I say Canadian politicians, and many voters, are dangerously out of touch with basic economic realities.