“We economists always worry about getting our counterfactual scenarios right; without a yardstick, we are paralyzed. There is an apocryphal story about an economist who, when asked ‘How is your wife?,’ replied: ‘Compared to what?’”
Jagdish Bhagwati, Protectionism
“How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping. But for that we should feel sorry rather than angry.”
Blaise Pascal Pensées
“Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world’s supreme good.”
Blaise Pascal Pensées
“We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature and, above all, with those Higher Powers which have made nature and have made us; for, assuredly, we have not come about by accident and certainly have not made ourselves.”
E.F. Schumacher Small Is Beautiful
“A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.”
“Gilbert!’s Top Dozen Very Bad Puns” in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #8 (July/August 2002)
“Descartes once joked about common sense that it must be universal, because he had yet to meet anyone who didn’t claim to have it.”
Michael Potemra in National Review Jan. 27, 2003 (I believe he was referring to the opening line of Discours de la Méthode: “Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée: car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose n’ont point coutume d’en désirer plus qu’ils en ont.”)
My latest Loonie Politics column contrasts the justified praise of George Bush Sr.’s character when he passed away with the abuse heaped on him when he held office.