In my latest National Post column I say people enjoy the comforting blanket of political make-believe yet crave truth when reality intrudes.
"history is little more than the Newgate calendar of nations"
Herbert Spencer, quoted by Will Durant The Story of Philosophy
“It is natural to civilised man to go back upon his past, and to be grateful for all profit he can gain from the study of his own development. So we may be certain that the claim of Greece and Rome to our eternal gratitude will never cease to be asserted, and their right to teach us still what we could have learnt nowhere else will never be successfully disputed.”
W. Warde Fowler Rome (written November 1911)
In my latest National Post column I say the horrific fire in London's Grenfell Tower happening in public housing is a powerful warning against putting too much faith in government.
“It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it."
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in Cormac McCarthy No Country for Old Men
“Words cannot express how deeply I regret the Annexation of Schleswig-Holstein.”
Florence King in National Review July 14 1997 (re politicians' fatuous habit of apologizing for historical deeds they had nothing to do with)
“No one is better placed to resist pressure than the person who knows he can’t give in to it.”
Conor Cruise O’Brien The Siege