“‘If he is dead to-day,’ he [Phocion to a tumultuous Athenian crowd following a rumour that Alexander the Great had died] said, ‘he will be so to-morrow and the day after to-morrow equally. So that there is no need to take counsel hastily or before it is safe.’”

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, Plutarch’s Lives II

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.”

G.K. Chesterton in “The Riddle of the Ivy” in Tremendous Trifles, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 3 No. 4 (Jan/Feb. 2000)

“But despite the current, almost mystical belief in communication-as-problem-solving – talk doesn’t always help.”

Lillian Breslow Rubin Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working-Class Family

“I definitely am going to take a course on time management… just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.”

“Louis Boone (1914-65), American critic” quoted in Cy Charney The Salesperson’s Handbook

“Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim in his holiday; but, like a true philosopher, he had an excuse. He had a sort of half purpose, which he took just so seriously that its success would crown the holiday, but just so lightly that its failure would not spoil it.”

G.K. Chesterton Favorite Father Brown Stories

In my latest National Post column I argue that the surge in opioid overdose deaths alone since March proves that in weighing the benefits of pandemic lockdowns, science and economics alike demand that we also count the very real human costs.

“There are two levers for moving men; interest and fear."

Widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte online but I have not found a specific attribution (mind you, I once worked for someone who said “There are two ways of motivating people – one is fear and I’ve forgotten the other” and the funny thing is, he was a great boss. But I was afraid of incurring his justified displeasure.)

“I indulged in what the Germans call Grübeleien, a word difficult to translate, connoting aimless broodings focused on oneself, with the outside world serving only as a resonance box for unbridled egoism.”

Nicolas Slonimsky Perfect Pitch (about time he spent in a sanatorium as a teen).