“History is not a social science but an unavoidable form of thought. That ‘we live forward but we can only think backward’ is true not only of the present (which is always a fleeting illusion) but of our entire view of the future: for even when we think of the future we do this by remembering it. But history cannot tell us anything about the future with certainty.”

John Lukacs, At the End of an Age

In my latest National Post column I offer the State of the Union address I think should be given in 2019… even if it makes people cry.

“My house, my car, my family may be a lot of responsibility, but I would rather take that responsibility than have any of you dating my wife or backing my car into phone poles or leaving your dirty socks on my bedroom floor. (Although when it comes to the kids, if any of you want to baby-sit for free, I’m willing to share.)”

P.J. O’Rourke to the 25th anniversary of the Cato Institute, in Cato Policy Report July/August 2002

“A knowledgeable fool is a greater fool than an ignorant one.”

Molière [e-mailed by a friend without further citation]

“‘The optimist goes to the window and says, “Good morning, God.” The pessimist goes to the window and says, “Good God, morning.”‘

“T.J. Park, Oshawa, Ont.” quoted in “Smile” in Globe & Mail September 5, 2001

“The problem of an enduring ethic and culture consists in finding an arrangement of the pieces by which they remain related, as do the stones arranged in an arch. And I know only one scheme that has thus proved its solidity, bestriding lands and ages with its gigantic arches, and carrying everywhere the high river of baptism upon an aqueduct of Rome.”

G.K. Chesterton, “Is Humanism a Religion?” in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 7 #8 (Issue 57, July-August 2004)