“Memorizing a Pushkin poem or a Horace ode at least made some sense, but there was no excuse for memorizing the table of logarithms except to amaze the innocents. As with most of my tricks, it was based on unsubtle fraud. I did not memorize five million digits, I memorized the logs of the first dozen or so prime numbers. Since the property of logarithms is such that multiplication is converted into addition of exponents, it was a matter of simple arithmetic to arrive at the answer."

Nicolas Slonimski Perfect Pitch [this one is from my "Oh, just that?" file]

"There will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights."

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News January 13, 2012, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #1 (September 2004)

"it’s a bit like remodelling the basement of a house that is slowly burning down."

Steve Maich in Maclean’s April 24, 2006

"Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there."

Will Rogers
 

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the people screeching about Doug Ford's supposed dictatorial lack of decency seem short on that quality themselves.