“they [lawyers] are plants that will grow in any soil that is cultivated by the hands of others; and when once they have taken root, they will extinguish every other vegetable that grows around them.”
J. Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur Letters from an American Farmer [and yes, I grant that it’s easy to mock lawyers until you need one]
“Way back in 1938 Walt Disney had some inspiring words about children’s entertainment: ‘everybody in the world was once a child. So in planning a new picture, we don’t think of grown-ups, and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall.’ Going on a hundred years later, the company which he founded seems to have forgotten about ‘that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us’.”
Editor Michael Cook’s note in email from Mercatornet April 1, 2022, teasing to a Kurt Mahlburg article.
“the bitter saying, ‘We learn from history that we do not learn from history.’”
Thomas Szasz Ideology And Insanity
In my latest National Post column I say the Friday-afternoon dump of the supposed and long-awaited Sustainable Jobs Plan could not hide that its authors have no idea what a plan even is, or what practicality is, which is why they have no interest in why central planning has always failed and always will.
“My [Houyhnhnm] master … said, a fancy would sometimes take a Yahoo to retire into a corner, to lie down, and howl, and groan, and spurn away all that came near him, although he were young and fat, wanted neither food nor water, nor did the servant imagine what could possibly ail him. And the only remedy they found was, to set him to hard work, after which he would infallibly come to himself. To this I was silent out of partiality to my own kind; yet here I could plainly discover the true seeds of spleen, which only seizes on the lazy, the luxurious, and the rich; who, if they were forced to undergo the same regimen, I would undertake for the cure.”
Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels
In my latest Loonie Politics column I praise John Tory for finding the honour to resign as mayor of Toronto, and mean it the second time, instead of denying that character had any relevance to politics like most of those commenting on the affair or whispering or yelling in his ear
“A general learns lessons. I’m not sure that a politician does. Or that a people does.”
Maj.-Gen Chris Vokes, My Story
“Fear cures anxiety… Real Schmerz trumps Weltschmerz. If you have had enough to drink.”
P.J. O’Rourke All The Trouble In The World [about a trip to Somalia].