"As Mr. Pond knows, the last lesson of the wise man is that the fool is sometimes right."

Steve Miller in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 9 #6

"History is boring only if people are boring. History isn’t relevant only if, living your own life, you don’t care how other people lived theirs."

William Watson in Ottawa Citizen July 11, 1998

"The two most important questions in any economic analysis are: (1) What is the alternative? and (2) What happens then, and then, and then?"

Robert Higgs “Allocation of Risks Associated with Medical Goods: Government Regulation versus Market Process”

In my latest National Post column I argue that there's no progress on the East Coast aboriginal fishery, and the rule of law is breaking down, because too many politicians and judges genuinely believe they can give stuff away to some people while keeping it for others.

"I would not want to make you unhappy by detailing pain, but there is a crucial sort of difference between pain and the narration of pain. I am telling you what happened. If there is vicarious pain in knowing, there is actual peril in not knowing. In aversion lies a colossal risk."

Philip K. Dick, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

In my latest National Post column I urge Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau to get out of hot water on taxes by simplifying the system dramatically because economically smart policy is also politically smart policy here.

"If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him."

Yogi Berra, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 4 # 4 (Jan./Feb. 2001)

"Vestigial remains of that Victorianism are everywhere around us. And memories of them persist even when the realities are gone, rather like an amputated limb that still seems to throb when the weather is bad. The sense of values lost may be as palpable as the values we do have."

Gertrude Himmelfarb, The De-moralization of Society