“You cannot evade the issue of God, whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him. Now if Christianity be… a fragment of metaphysical nonsense invented by a few people, then, of course, defending it will simply mean talking that metaphysical nonsense over and over again. But if Christianity should happen to be true – that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe – then defending it may mean talking about anything or everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true.”

G.K. Chesterton in Daily News December 12, 1903 , quoted in Dale Ahlquist and Peter Floriani Chesterton University Student Handbook

Sir John A. “Macdonald slew [John Joseph Caldwell] Abbott with a single phrase: ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a sweet smile. All from the teeth outward.’”

Pierre Berton The National Dream

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say all the people suddenly demanding that noisy protests with an ugly fringe be denounced and driven from the public square, to say nothing of blockades and actual vandalism, will be asked to take a similar approach to the next one even if they sympathize with its cause.

In my latest NP Platformed newsletter I say Whoopi Goldberg’s racially insensitive and obtuse comments on the Holocaust might actually help us move back toward sanity on race, and on cancel culture as well.

“‘A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.’”

G.K. Chesterton quoted in A.L. Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox

“Or perhaps not only the seasons but everything else, social history included, moves in cycles. Not, however, that earlier times were better than ours in every way – our own epoch too has produced moral and intellectual achievements for our descendants to copy. And such honourable rivalry with the past is a fine thing.”

Tacitus The Annals of Imperial Rome

“I am constantly asked what we are going to do with the [Nobel economics] prize money – $1.2 million before Uncle Sam takes his very large bite. The answer to that is a simple lesson in economics. Wants always expand to take advantage of new opportunities, which explains why consumers in rich countries feel no more satiated than do those in poor countries. My wife and I won’t have the slightest difficulty spending the prize money.”

Gary Becker in Business Week November 2 1992 [but if so then the marginal utility of new income is zero which surely is not true]

“Feeling badly done to is not a saleable commodity.”

Another of mine, from September 16, 2005 (these days I’m not so sure, but it still shouldn’t be)