"I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, as part of a generation who were taught the minutiae of 'social history.' There was no wider context to put it in, no framework, no sense of a larger, grander picture. It was plodding and confusing and mind-numbingly dull. It was after I left school that I became interested in history as it is meant to be taught – as a story, as conflict and character, as cause and effect. My approach comes from my own 're-discovery' of Canadian history."

Will Ferguson in a Q&A in The Beaver October-November 2005

"As a profession, we have made a mess of things. It seems to me that this failure of economics to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with our general propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences, an attempt which in our field may lead to serious error…. If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire that full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible."

Friedrich Hayek in his Nobel Prize in Economics acceptance speech, quoted in Brian Lee Crowley Crowley The Road to Equity

In my latest National Post column I wish news stories would more often refer to government spending being cut, especially by contrast with the lurid and generally inaccurate "slashed".

"As we want a person to play for pleasure, we want him to think for pleasure."

G. K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Feb. 18 1928, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 16 #4 (Jan.-Feb. 2013) p. 44.

Jesse Brown of Canadaland just posted an interview with me about The Rebel, Charlottesville and the state of public debate more generally. He and I certainly don't see eye to eye on a lot of things so I appreciate the opportunity to have a civil discussion about our disagreements instead of the sort of shouting match that too often erupts nowadays.

"The only thing one can be proud of is having worked in such a way that an official reward for your behaviour cannot be envisaged by anyone."

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French writer and filmmaker, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail April 5, 2011. (Cocteau was in fact a member of the Académie française and the Royal Academy of Belgium, a Commander of the Legion of Honor and a member of the Mallarmé Academy, the German Academy (Berlin), the American Academy, the Mark Twain (U.S.A) Academy, as well as Honorary President of the Cannes film festival, Honorary President of the France-Hungary Association and President of the Jazz Academy and of the Academy of the Disc, which tells you what intellectuals' pose of rebellion is generally worth.)