“An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly anything.”

Goethe, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 17, 2006

“We do not read Aristotle to find out what people used to think, but for guidance on the issues of today.”

Here I quote myself, from October 1996.

“L’intérêt met en oeuvre toutes sortes de vertus et de vices.”

Réflexions morales #253 in La Rochefoucauld Maximes

“You always have to go on that, your instinctive trust or – your lack of trust. In the final analysis, there is really nothing else you can go on.”

Philip K. Dick VALIS

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

Abraham Lincoln, quoted in the American Spectator August 1988

“What if lawyers and economists wrote the sitcoms? Very likely, they would turn out so that they more closely approximated the agony and pain of real life, which is really so frightening that it simply has to be funny.”

An author whose name I did not record in The American Spectator August 1988

Réflexions morales #174 “Il vaut mieux employer notre esprit à supporter les infortunes qui nous arrivent qu’à prévoir celles qui nous peuvent arriver.”

La Rochefoucauld Maximes

“When you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Winston Churchill, quoted in William D. Gairdner The Trouble With Democracy