"it is only by eternal institutions like hair that we can test passing institutions like empires. If a house is so built as to knock a man's head off when he enters it, it is built wrong.:

G.K. Chesterton What’s Wrong with the World p. 193.

"When walking through your neighbour's melon-patch, don't tie your shoe"

Chinese proverb according to David Crystal in As They Say in Zanzibar quoted in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail December 18, 2006

"Chesterton begins his essay ["The Philosophy of Gratitude"] by recounting a passage from a letter he received in response to one of his essays. The writer wanted to know the meaning of the following sentence that he had read in Chesterton: 'No one can be miserable who has noticed anything worth being miserable about.' Chesterton tells us that he wrote this sentence in 'a wild moment.' But it was still true, whatever its wildness. If I notice that I am miserable, then I must have some sense of what it means to be not miserable. My condition, in other words, is not exclusively locked into misery."

James V. Schall SJ in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 13 # 8 (July-August 2010)

In my latest National Post column I say the federal Liberals have literally no idea what they're getting themselves into when they promise to assess every policy initiative in the budget according to its impact on everything to do with gender including all their other policies.

"Winston Churchill once described the Balkans as a region that produced more history than it could consume."

Carol Off The Ghosts of Medak Pocket

"I remember that when I was a boy my teacher asked if anybody knew what laissez faire meant. I didn’t realize it was a French phrase. I thought it meant the government was 'lazy' and 'fair.' And it certainly worked well for Hong Kong under British rule."

Martin Lee in CATO Policy Report Vol. XXI, #6 (Nov./Dec. 1999)