In my latest National Post column I deplore the growing tendency to classify climate denial as a psychological disorder and offer the Climate Discussion Nexus as a civil alternative to misinformation and insults.
“We live under the shadow of a gigantic question mark. Who are we? Where do we come from? Whither are we bound?”
Hendrick Van Loon The Story of Mankind (the beginning)
“He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.”
Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci according to izquotes.com/quote/leonardo-da-vinci/he-who-does-not-punish-evil-commands-it-to-be-done-275351
“let them choose rather to be corrected by the wise than to be lauded by the foolish.”
St. Augustine City of God
“An optimist is someone who thinks the future is uncertain.”
Anonymous, quoted as ”Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail March 28, 2000
“Unmaking the bomb (as I’ve written before) is like trying to un-eat the forbidden fruit. Leaving the Tree of Knowledge alone might have been a better choice, but it’s a bit too late for that. Pretending it never happened isn’t a useful idea. God had good reasons for his dietary restrictions in the Garden of Eden, arbitrary as they may have seemed to his critics, then and since.”
George Jonas in National Post August 8, 2015 (defending the use of nuclear weapons to end World War II; interestingly, Jonas was not a believer)
“’Oh, yeah, when I retire from this job I plan on passing the torch, all right. Flaming end first.’”
A harried, sweating office worker in the cartoon Real Life Adventures in Ottawa Sun August 11, 2004
“One must live the way one thinks or end up thinking the way one has lived.”
Paul Bourget “(1852-1935) French novelist and critic” quoted as “Thought du Jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail August 6, 2009