"'popular economist’ is a contradiction in terms. Economics has never been – and perhaps never can be – popular because it is the study of what people actually do rather than what they profess to do or recommend that others do. It lays bare hypocrisy and dwells far too gloomily on the ‘unintended results’ to which so many fine-sounding policies fall prey."
Peter Foster in Financial Post May 2, 2006
"Knowledge leads either to reverence or arrogance."
"Anonymous”, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail December 6, 2006
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see."
Arthur Schopenhauer, quoted in ”Social Studies" in Globe & Mail October 4, 2006
“The question which moral system was the best depends principally on the question whether the heathen philosophers or the Christian preachers were right in their estimate of the facts. To suppose that Christian morals can ever survive the downfall of the great Christian doctrine is as absurd as to suppose that a yearly tenant will feel towards his property like a tenant in fee simple.”
James Fitzjames Stephen, “Note on Utilitarianism” postscript to Stephen's book Liberty Equality Fraternity
“the atmosphere of alarm, of being scotched, of being up a tree of incredible height...”
Arnold Bennett in "Lo! ‘Twas a Gala Night!" in Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
“That’s true enough, but we must go and work in the garden.”
Candide (when reminded by Pangloss that all is for the best) in Voltaire Candide
“Without memory we are a society suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s, tackling each day like a baby with its finger stuck out before the flames…. our self-imposed Alzheimer’s.”
John Ralston Saul in the inaugural LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture, reprinted in Globe & Mail March 24, 2000
"Liberty underlies the entire enterprise; it’s not just one more vector in an indifference curve.”
Walter Block in Michael Walker, ed., Freedom Democracy and Economic Welfare: Proceedings of an International Symposium