Christie Heffner “told the [Chicago] Sun-Times, ‘pornography is a word used by critics to demonize sexual images they don’t approve of.’ Failing to follow up properly, the reporters neglected to ask Ms. Hefner why she thinks ‘to demonize’ is a bad thing.”
Gilbert! magazine Vol. 3 #8, July/August 2000
“You should never try to teach a pig to sing: it can’t be done, and it annoys the pig.”
Letter from Matthew Horan of Fort Smith, Arkansas in National Review Dec. 30, 1991, quoting the opinion of H. Franklin Waters, Chief Judge of the Western District of Arkansas in Robertson v White, 633 F. Supp. 954, 959 (W.D. Ark 1986). [How’s that for a detailed, even pedantic reference?]
“Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim in his holiday; but, like a true philosopher, he had an excuse. He had a sort of half purpose, which he took just so seriously that its success would crown the holiday, but just so lightly that its failure would not spoil it.”
G.K. Chesterton Favorite Father Brown Stories
“Education, even democratic education, will not remove international conflict, because conflict is rooted in the morally ambiguous nature of man.”
Ernest W. Lefever, Ethics And United States Foreign Policy
In my latest National Post column I argue that the surge in opioid overdose deaths alone since March proves that in weighing the benefits of pandemic lockdowns, science and economics alike demand that we also count the very real human costs.
“There are two levers for moving men; interest and fear."
Widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte online but I have not found a specific attribution (mind you, I once worked for someone who said “There are two ways of motivating people – one is fear and I’ve forgotten the other” and the funny thing is, he was a great boss. But I was afraid of incurring his justified displeasure.)
In my latest Loonie Politics column I ask everyone to keep calm and rely on evidence rather than partisan passion in determining whether there were any significant ballot box shenanigans in the United States. It is as absurd to call fraud impossible a priori if you won as to call it necessary a priori if you lost, and the winners have at least as big a stake as the losers in making sure the vote was clean.
“I indulged in what the Germans call Grübeleien, a word difficult to translate, connoting aimless broodings focused on oneself, with the outside world serving only as a resonance box for unbridled egoism.”
Nicolas Slonimsky Perfect Pitch (about time he spent in a sanatorium as a teen).