“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates, quoted in Neil Postman Building a Bridge to the 18th Century (and about 10 million other places)
“he immatures with age”.
Harold Wilson (of Tony Benn) quoted in The Economist July 11, 1992
“‘I cannot predict the future,’ as one of my favourite historians says, ‘but I can tell you what isn’t going to happen.’”
David Warren in Ottawa Citizen June 10, 1999
“Of all political ideals, that of making people happy is perhaps the most dangerous one. It leads invariably to the attempt to impose our scale of ‘higher’ values upon others, in order to make them realize what seems to us of greatest importance for their happiness; in order, as it were, to save their souls.”
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2
In my latest Epoch Times column I challenge would-be federal Conservative leaders Jean Charest and Patrick Brown in particular to show that they stand for something beside office, on practical and moral grounds.
Last Friday I was on theZoomer Round Table to explain how we got into this crisis and why starting World War III over Ukraine isn’t a good idea despite all the important humanitarian and strategic reasons for helping them defeat Putin’s invasion. (In the panel discussion starting 16 minutes into the video.)
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say now that two federal cabinet ministers have blurted out what we all knew anyway, we need to decide whether to go back to pretending or actually built ourselves a military.
“Let the cymbals of popularity tinkle still. Let the butterflies of fame glitter with their wings. I shall envy neither their music nor their colors.”
John Adams, quoted without further attribution in Epoch Times email newsletter 23 November 2021