“Now in the year 1066 the grandson of a Norse pirate was recognized as king of England. Why should we ever read fairy stories, when the truth of history is so much more interesting and entertaining?”
Hendrick Van Loon The Story of Mankind.
In my latest National Post column I suggest that a habit of counting our blessings on Canada would help preserve them.
“Over the years, I have come to understand a critical difference between the world of fear and the world of freedom. In the former, the primary challenge is finding the inner strength to confront evil. In the latter, the primary challenge is finding the moral clarity to see evil.”
Natan Sharansky with Ron Dermer The Case for Democracy
"Human history is the history of civilizations. It is impossible to think of the development of humanity in any other terms."
Samuel Huntington The Clash of Civilizations
"The history of the earth! Doth it present anything but crimes of the most heinous nature, committed from one end of the world to the other?"
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. Letters from an American Farmer [prompted by American slavery].
"Dissidents understood the power of freedom because it had already transformed our own lives. It liberated us the day we stopped living in a world where ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’ were, like everything else, the property of the State. And for the most part, this liberation did not stop when we were sentenced to prison."
Natan Sharansky with Ron Dermer The Case for Democracy