In my latest Epoch Times column I contrast the Canadian federal government’s sluggish incapacity even to agree to hand out cash to get other people to build houses with the endless vaulting promises of our politicians to deliver social justice, world peace and better weather.
“I try to enthuse my patients with the glory of the world, with indifferent success, I must admit. It is almost as if they wanted the world to be boring, to justify their own lack of interest in it. To be bored and disabused is taken by many people nowadays as a sign of spiritual election or superiority, as if the world does not quite come up to their exacting standards.”
Theodore Dalrymple in National Post December 27, 2003
“If you’ve got to eat an elephant, you shouldn’t be surprised if after the first few mouthfuls you’re not down to the bones.”
“Britain’s top military officer … chief of defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup” quoted in Ottawa Citizen Sept. 10, 2007 [at a NATO meeting, re the Afghan mission, but it remains good advice despite the ultimate debacle there].
“Garth could go through the 24-hour flu in eight hours.”
“An acquaintance of [Garth] Drabinsky’s” on his “hurry to succeed” according to Peter C. Newman in Maclean’s February 1, 1999
“If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; if we are terrified, we are terrified. There is no problem about it.”
Alan Watts quoted in Jon Winokur Zen To Go
“Finnish community artists Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 35, and Tellervo Kalleinen, 32, came up with the idea three years ago... the Finnish word valituskuoro... translates into ‘complaints choir’ and refers to people complaining in packs... ‘And then we got excited about this term and said, “Hey this would be really funny to make a real complaints choir”’ that sings about their gripes, said Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen.... they were able to test out the idea in Birmingham, England, where they were invited for a two-week artists’ residency... ‘Then we heard complaints that Birmingham was a very ugly city ... and we thought if it’s so ugly then it’s the perfect place to start a complaints choir.’ So they did…. People who answered the call for choir members came up with a dizzying variety of complaints – from the personal to the political. Selections were edited down and then a local musician was called in to put the gripes to an original score. The Birmingham choir had two successful performances, one in a local hall and another on the street. The second gig culminated in a celebration at a pub where the choir did an impromptu performance griping about the price of the beer – but to no avail. After the success of the Birmingham choir, groups formed in places such as Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Hamburg and Melbourne.... There is now a website (http://complaintschoir.org) telling people how to set up their own choirs. So what’s the most unusual complaint that Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen has heard? ‘In Finland we had a woman who complained that her dreams are boring,’ he recalled.”
Globe & Mail November 14, 2007
“Now if you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired … You’ve always got to make the mind take over and keep going.”
“George S. Patton, general” quoted by Donna Jacobs “Monday Morning” in Ottawa Citizen October 2, 2006
“Blasphemy depends upon belief, and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.”
G.K. Chesterton in “Introductory Remarks” in Heretics quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 17 #5 (March-April 2014)