“The term nearest to being synonymous with pleasure is volition: what it pleases a man to do, or what he pleases to do, may be far from giving him enjoyment; yet shall we say that in doing it, he is not following his own pleasure?… A native of Japan, when he is offended, stabs himself to prove the intensity of his feelings. It is difficult to prove enjoyment in this case: yet the man obeyed his impulses.”

John Hill Burton, “Bentham’s editor”, quoted in I.A. Richards Principles of Literary Criticism and sourced to Jeremy Bentham’s Works, vol. I

In my latest Mercatornet column I say the mania for booster shots for vaccines that don’t work very well to stop a variant they may not work against at all is not science.

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the reason public officials pivot ataxically from one certainty to another on SARS-CoV-2 (yes, that’s the virus) is that the public won’t accept that the government doesn’t have all the answers.

“The fundamental question to be asked about any theological statement is, ‘What is the evidence that makes you think this might be true?’”

Author’s Introduction to John Polkinghorne The Faith of a Physicist

According to Schopenhauer “It is this removal of the personal equation which leaves the genius so maladapted in the world of will-full, practical, personal activity. By seeing so far he does not see what is near; he is imprudent and ‘queer’; and while his vision is hitched to a star he falls into a well.”

Will Durant The Story of Philosophy [paraphrasing not quoting]

“The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort.”

C.S. Lewis “Christian Apologetics” in The Grand Miracle

“Other people’s heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man’s true happiness.”

Schopenhauer deploring the pursuit of fame in “Wisdom of Life,” quoted in Will Durant The Story of Philosophy

“He [the “mature man”] knows, with Carlyle, that there is no sense in vilifying the sun because it will not light our cigars. And perhaps, if we are clever enough to help it, the sun will do even that...”

Will Durant The Story of Philosophy [part of Durant’s critique of Schopenhauer’s excessive gloominess]