“Friends, when once a man is launched on such an adventure as this, he must bid farewell to hopes and fears, otherwise death or deliverance will both come too late to save his honour and his reason.”

Prince Rilian in C.S. Lewis The Silver Chair

“Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he has not created himself – and is nevertheless free. Because having once been hurled into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”

Jean-Paul Sartre, quoted by Alberto Knox in Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

In my latest National Post column I remind commentators that Notre Dame is a Paris “tourist attraction” and historical landmark because it’s a very beautiful church, and suggest that it’s beautiful because of the faith that built it.

In Convivium I warn that AI threatens our humanity almost as much if it does work as it threatens humanity if it runs amok.

“The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.”

G.K. Chesterton in the introduction to The Defendant

“It’s not what you are; it’s what you don’t become that hurts."

Oscar Levant, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Globe & Mail August 30, 2001

“The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are ‘Real’ while the spiritual elements are ‘subjective’; in all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality and to ignore them is to be an escapist.”

C.S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters.