"If you do not do what you say you will do, you can only rule, never lead."
"Thought for today” on the blackboard of the Pacific Coffee Company in Exchange Square, Hong Kong, quoted by Charles Gordon in Ottawa Citizen November 11, 1999
In my latest National Post column I lament that the Speaker of the BC legislature seems to have become just one more partisan tool for control of the executive branch instead of a bulwark of legislative independence in defence of self-government.
My latest piece in MercatorNet, based on a speech to the Augustine College Summer Conference (and an earlier National Post column and upcoming Dorchester Review article) asks how a society as devoted to "choice" as our own can at the same time so relentlessly restrict choice.
"it’s more important to make a difference than to make a point."
Andrew Cohen in Ottawa Citizen October 11, 200511/10/05
“Here is a simple truth: humanity has been far better to me than I have been to humanity. All this through the gifts of God. And if I talk about this endlessly it is because God and the angels He has sent to protect me merit endless praise and glory.”
Benjamin J. Stein in The American Spectator June 2005
"I’m sure, for Hale Irwin, (winning) is old hat. But it’s a new hat for me, I’ll tell you."
Jim Ahern, then age 50, on winning the AT&T Canada Senior Open in 1999 in a playoff against Irwin (after getting in through a Monday qualifying event, having played 60 PGA events between 1972 and 1975 and never finishing better than tied for 9th), quoted in Ottawa Citizen August 30 1999 p. C3.
"When I was 17, I read a quote somewhere that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And when the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."
Steve Jobs, June 12, 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, reprinted in National Post June 30, 2005