“He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.”
Edmund Burke in his “Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol”, cited in Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics & Belief
An election-night pundit “appeared to have had her hair fried for the occasion.”
John Doyle, “Television,” in Globe & Mail November 3, 2004
In my latest National Post column I express enthusiasm for freedom in Cuba… and Canada.
In The Interim I reflect on classic books on the vital topic of citizenship only to realize I can’t think of any.
“A very honest atheist with whom I once debated made use of the expression, ‘Men have only been kept in slavery by the fear of hell.’ As I pointed out to him, if he had said that men had only been freed from slavery by the fear of hell, he would at least have been referring to an unquestionable historical fact.”
G.K. Chesterton in St. Francis of Assisi, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 # 6 (April/May 2001)
“Give your brain as much attention as you do your hair and you'll be a thousand times better off.”
Malcolm X (widely quoted online; I was first alerted to it in a paraphrase in the Ottawa Citizen March 7, 1999)
“No one of his Cabinet really understood Lincoln. He was constantly scandalizing them by his calm disregard of convention, and his seemingly prodigal waste of time. The friends and advisers of Jesus were similarly shocked. How could any one with such important business allow himself to be so casually interrupted! One of the surest marks of greatness, of course, is accessibility and the appearance of having an unstinted allowance of time. ‘Extreme busyness is a symptom of deficient vitality,’ says Stevenson. The disciples were extremely busy, Judas most of all.”
Bruce Barton The Man Nobody Knows
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the Trudeau administration’s attack on the rights of Parliament is no less dangerous for being the result of arrogant ignorance not clever conspiracy.