"A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn’t feel like it; an amateur is one who can’t when he does feel like it."
James Agate, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail Nov. 4, 2005
“Have they [the philosophers] found the cure for our ills? Is it curing man’s presumption to set him up as God’s equal?”
Blaise Pascal Pensées
“the words itched more than they tickled.”
Larry Hill in Maclean’s August 27, 2001
In my latest Looniepolitics column I argue that the Ontario Tories' standard Conservative cunning plan not to be seen with conservative policies is once again backfiring.
"On his deathbed, Chesterton proclaimed: 'The issue is now quite clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.'"
Kevin O’Reilly in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #2 (October-November 2001)
"The past is hopeless. There’s too much of it."
Detective Nero Wolfe in Home to Roost, quoted in “Gilbert’s Top Dozen Pearls of Detective Wisdom” in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 # 3 (December 2001)
In my latest National Post column I provide Canada's Prime Minister with the independent inquiry he demanded into Israel's use of force to protect its borders against Hamas terrorism.
“Although an enormous diversity of opinion was behind bars in the Gulag... all the dissidents understood that a society that does not protect the right of dissent, even if the society perfectly conforms to their own unique values and ideas, will inevitably turn into a fear society that endangers everybody.... A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it’s a fear society.”
Natan Sharansky with Ron Dermer The Case for Democracy