“to illuminate the human soul.”

The task of historians as well as novelists according to British historian Cicely Veronica Wedgewood (1911-97), quoted in Quotes, Notes and Anecdotes (The Write File Quarterly) Spring 1997 and there attributed to her obituary in The Economist March 28, 1997

In my latest National Post column I say nobody won the election and things won’t improve until the parties admit it and accept their share of the blame.

“there is an immense amount of pleasure to be derived from the sense of private ownership. It is surely no accident that every man has affection for himself: nature meant this to be so. Selfishness is condemned, and justly, but selfishness is not simply to be fond of oneself, but to be excessively fond.”

Aristotle The Politics.

In my latest Epoch Times column I remember, with some difficulty, that even a really annoying and disappointing election is a victory every time we vote freely and without fear.

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”

Rudyard Kipling, widely quoted online (including https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/225625-of-all-the-liars-in-the-world-sometimes-the-worst) [some sources have “your own fears”

“It is better to be defeated than to confess defeat in advance.”

William Jennings Bryan in a letter to his brother Charles in 1920, quoted in Robert W. Cherny, A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

“But by the mid-twentieth century, God was killed off in the public mind – or if not killed, then badly disabled…”

William D. Gairdner The Trouble With Democracy

“He is a modest man, with a great deal to be modest about.”

Winston Churchill about Clement Attlee, quoted by Richard John Neuhaus in First Things April 2002