“The only people who complain of being bored are people who are boring.”
Father Lawrence C. Smith in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 6 #1 (September 2002)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the proposal to exempt Quebec MNAs from an oath of allegiance to our actual Constitution in favour of some pompous make-believe is a dangerous relativist attack on the rule of law.
“We have, indeed, but to glance at the biographies of great men to find that the most distinguished inventors, artists, thinkers, and workers of all kinds, owe their success, in a great measure, to their indefatigable industry and application…. Hence it happens that the men who have most moved the world, have not been so much men of genius, strictly so called, as men of intense mediocre abilities, and untiring perseverance… ‘Alas!’ said a widow, speaking of her brilliant but careless son, ‘he has not the gift of continuance.’ Wanting in perseverance, such volatile natures are outstripped in the race of life by the diligent and even the dull. ‘Che va piano, va longano, e va lontano,’ says the Italian proverb: Who goes slowly, goes long, and goes far.”
Samuel Smiles Self-Help
“We cannot describe mind in terms of matter; if only for the reason that we cannot even perceive matter except by mind.”
G.K. Chesterton “The Route of Reason” in Where Are The Dead? quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 # 4 (March-April 2022)
“More than 1,500 pieces of graffiti were preserved in Pompeii when that Roman city was buried in volcanic ash 1,922 years ago. They include: ‘Aufidius was here.’ ‘Marcus loves Spendusa.’ ‘I am amazed, O wall, that you have not collapsed and fallen, since you must bear the tedious stupidities of so many scrawlers.’ Source: The Washington Post.”
Globe & Mail July 12, 2001 p. A16
“principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth.”
Jonathan Swift quoted by Rondi Adamson in Ottawa Citizen December 16, 2001
“it is perfectly permissible and perfectly natural to become bored with a subject just as it is perfectly permissible and perfectly natural to be thrown from a horse or to miss a trail or to look up the answer to a puzzle at the end of the book.”
GKC, “A Defence of Bores,” in Alberto Manguel, ed., On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton
“Attention, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, and despatch, are the principal qualities required for the efficient conduct of business of any sort. These, at first sight, may appear to be small matters; and yet they are of essential importance to human happiness, well-being, and usefulness. They are little things, it is true; but human life is made up of comparative trifles. It is the repetition of little acts which constitute not only the sum of human character, but which determine the character of nations.”
Samuel Smiles Self-Help