“Let the cymbals of popularity tinkle still. Let the butterflies of fame glitter with their wings. I shall envy neither their music nor their colors.”
John Adams, quoted without further attribution in Epoch Times email newsletter 23 November 2021
In my latest National Post column I say justified sympathy for the people of Ukraine does not justify abandoning good sense when it comes to a nuclear confrontation.
“In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty and singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand, shake off all the fears and servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”
Thomas Jefferson, in a 1787 letter to his orphan nephew Peter Carr, quoted in William Bennett The Book of Virtues
“He never told the truth when a lie would serve”.
Douglas MacArthur on FDR, quoted in Chronicles magazine September 1993
In my latest National Post column I say it’s important to stand up for ourselves and our values over Ukraine without blundering, or sauntering, into a nuclear war… and if you think it’s hard, congratulations, you’re a grownup who realizes reality is tricky.
“In this life we get nothing save by effort.”
Theodore Roosevelt, “In Praise of the Strenuous Life,” in William Bennett The Book of Virtues
“just as historians tell us that Richard I was not fit to fill the shoes of bold Henry II – and that Richard Cromwell was not fit to wear the mantle of his uncle – they might add in future years that Richard Nixon did not measure to the footsteps of Dwight D. Eisenhower.”
John F. Kennedy’s nomination acceptance speech July 16, 1960 (the irony being that the metaphor only works if we have some idea who these people were, yet JFK didn’t realize Richard “Tumble-Down Dick” Cromwell was not Oliver’s nephew but his son, or that Oliver Cromwell’s “mantle” is not something you would want to have fit you).
In my latest NP Platformed newsletter I say Whoopi Goldberg’s racially insensitive and obtuse comments on the Holocaust might actually help us move back toward sanity on race, and on cancel culture as well.