“We must not provide against the loss of wealth by poverty, or of friends by refusing all acquaintance, or of children by having none, but by morality and reason.”

Plutarkhos, aka Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus Plutarch’s Lives Vol. I

“breeding rather than feeding”

John Mercel Robson (my father) summarizing the nature/nurture argument in a letter in 1993

“Three moves is as good as a fire, my grandmother used to say — paraphrasing Ben Franklin, I learned years later.”

J. Bottum in First Things December 2002

In my latest National Post column I say when the rule of law no longer applies either to the powerful or to the mob it’s not social justice or any other kind.

In my latest Epoch Times column I say we can have a happy Canada Day if we’re sensible about history and human nature.

“‘what will always be discovered by a diligent and impartial inquirer, that wherever human nature is to be found, there is a mixture of vice and virtue, a contest of passion and reason…’”

Samuel Johnson quoted in D.J. Enright’s introduction to Samuel Johnson The History of Rasselas