"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
Nelson Henderson, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Globe and Mail March 29, 2001
"What beats me is how any body of men can delude themselves into thinking that they can abolish war as an instrument for settling international disputes. No sane person wants wars; that is a recognized fact, but we have them just the same. No one wants jails, hospitals, insane asylums, murders, robberies, etc.; but we have them just the same. Why? Well, in my opinion it can be given in just two words – human nature, a condition which is the same today as it was when Noah built the Ark, as it was when Julius Caesar enlarged the Roman Empire, and as it was when the Princess Pats marched down Bank street, many years ago, on their way overseas."
Letter from a G.H. Giles of Ottawa in Ottawa Citizen Sept. 4, 1931, reprinted in Ottawa Citizen Oct. 19, 1999
"To suppose that this universe came into existence, with you and me in it, in order that we might, in Shakespeare’s felicitous phrase, 'grind out our appetites', is not only to demean life, but to make it farcical as well."
Malcolm Muggeridge, "Address, 1970" in Ian Hunter, ed., The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge
An excellent Mercatornet piece by Margaret Harper McCarthy on how religious freedom must mean far more than the right to indulge certain opinions in private, reprinted from Humanum Review.
"Modern conditions are treated as fixed, though the very word 'modern' implies that they are fugitive. Old Ideas are treated as impossible, though their very antiquity often proves their permanence."
G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 No. 2 (Oct.-Nov. 2000)
"the real difference between man and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state."
Aristotle, The Politics p. 60
"What’s the point of being a hedonist if you’re not having a good time?"
Lily Tomlin, Search for Signs of Intelligent Life, quoted in The New Republic Oct. 7, 1991