"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want."

Ben Stein, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail May 8, 2007

"Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so."

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail August 31, 2005

"Okay, enough blue-skying; let’s grey-sky it a bit."

Ric Dolphin in Western Standard June 28, 2004

"What’s the point of being a hedonist if you’re not having a good time?"

Lily Tomlin, Search for Signs of Intelligent Life, quoted in The New Republic Oct. 7, 1991

"We should always endeavour to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth."

G.K. Chesterton, The Apostle and the Wild Ducks, quoted in Dale Ahlquist and Peter Floriani Chesterton University Student Handbook.

In my latest National Post column I say the solution to mean-spirited echo chambers and fake news online is in the mirror.

"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish."

Euripides
 

"Pessimism, you know, is often a form of vanity."

Sandy Arbuthnot in John Buchan The Three Hostages