“‘man will live forevermore because of Christmas day,’ as Harry Belafonte put it in those more confident times a mere 40 years ago…”
Mark Steyn in National Post December 24, 1999 [so 60 years ago now and the cultural and intellectual situation has not improved]
“Politicians are not going to get any smarter. Politicians are not going to get any nicer.”
Two entries in my ongoing work-in-progress “Robson’s Rules of History”, these two both dating to some point in the autumn of 1997. [I submit that thus far I have been proven sadly correct.]
“Liberty is traditional and conservative; it remembers its legends and its heroes. But tyranny is always young and seemingly innocent, and asks us to forget the past.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News December 30, 1911, quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #5 (May/June 2022)
In my latest Epoch Times column I parse modern efforts to hide what we celebrate on Dec. 25 behind “Season” and “Winter” greetings, lights and other obvious clues.
“It is one of the most interesting principles of ancient and modern warfare (one of the few reliable laws of history) that ‘the nation which commands the sea is also the nation which commands the land.’ So far this law has never failed to work, but the modern airplane may have changed it.”
Hendrik Van Loon The Story of Mankind
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the scathing inquiry into Ottawa’s light rail transit debacle, and the scattering of those responsible clutching large pensions, proves what I’ve been saying about megaprojects for years.
“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
Margaret Thatcher, quoted by Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html)
“L’histoire, qui nous apprend ce qui arrive dans le monde, nous montre également les grands événements et les médiocres; cette confusion d’objets nous empêche souvent de discerner avec assez d’attention les choses extraordinaires qui sont renfermées dans le course de chaque siècle. Celui où nous vivons en a produit, à mon sense, de plus singuliers que les précédents.”
La Rochefoucauld Maximes (start of Réflexions Diverses XIX. Des événements de ce siècle)