“Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. There are 40 men of wit for one of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of readier change.”

Alexander Pope, quoted in Globe & Mail January 29, 1997

“The most neglected history is recent history.”

G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Luke Sharp in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 7 #4 (Jan.-Feb. 2004)

In my latest National Post column I say GM closing plants after swallowing huge government subsidies teaches a sharp lesson… for those willing to learn.

“No society can be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.”

Adam Smith, quoted in Lionel Robbins The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy