“I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.”

Narrator’s internal monologue in Robert Louis Stevenson Kidnapped [by paid he means, obviously, they get their just comeuppance]

[This family profiled in a bleating story] “are fond of placing interesting quotes on the wall, and there is one they could really use that my teenage daughter’s competitive ringette team follows: ‘Don’t wish it was easier, make yourself better.’”

Letter from David McGruer in Ottawa Citizen Feb. 4, 2007 [the family in question had all sorts of sob stories about how the difficulties in making ends meet but in the letter writer’s opinion were not making some obvious efforts that would help]

“If a man has anything in him, travel will bring it out – especially ocean travel.”

Frances Rodman quoted in “Other Suspects I Quotes not by GKC” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #2 (Nov./Dec. 2024)

“There are diverse attitudes to babies in public spaces, and many efforts to formulate the rules for manners and etiquette without annoying anyone too much.... Many of the troublesome examples arise from people who are annoyed by babies, but should really just mind their own business and deal with it. But other examples reveal a crude overconfidence in parents about the behaviour of their child, an inflated sense of how cute their baby seems to other adults. At worst, this is an entitled sanctimony that verges on rude cluelessness…. So what that squinty-eyed view of babies in public boils down to is this. It’s not that you shouldn’t bring your baby to this public event because it’s wrong in principle to bring babies to public events. It’s a more subtle point. You shouldn’t bring your baby to this public event because you are being annoying, right here and now, just you, specifically you. And let’s be clear. No one can blame the baby. The parent is the annoyance. This is not the time to share your views on child development theory, knowing that social media will back you up. These are beside the point. Junior’s being a pest, which at least for the time being means you’re being a pest.”

Joseph Brean in National Post Sept. 9, 2025 [summarizing the squinty-eyed views of etiquette expert Elaine Swann]

“While the differences between Anglo-French and German motivations, which we stressed earlier, remained distinct for soldiers and civilians during the entire war, the sensibilities of the British and French had moved toward the German [particularly regarding abandoning restraint with regard to methods.... The Western nations moved in the course of the war toward stronger social control but also toward a new spiritual liberality. Within this paradox, as the social and cultural welds seemed to split away from each other, would lie the essence of the modern experience.”

Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era

“When there are people who espouse the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy or the Tate murders or the Marin County Courthouse kidnappings and killings or the University of Wisconsin bombing and killing as ‘revolutionary acts,’ then we are dealing with people who are merely hiding psychosis behind a political mask.”

Prologue” in Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals [he also warns that it is counterproductive, disgusting and scaring normal people].

“Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul...”

“Thomas Paine” quoted as 2nd of 3 header quotations in Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals [before even the table of contents].

“Where there are no men, be thou a man.”

“Rabbi Hillel” quoted as 1st of 3 header quotations in Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals [before even the table of contents].