“In 1867, Matthew Arnold heard the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of the Sea of Faith.”
Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character
“Someone once defined ‘committee’ as a group of men who keep minutes and waste hours.”
A writer whose name I did not record in Chronicles magazine December 1990
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say making Steven Guilbeault environment minister was a bad idea everyone should have seen coming.
“This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.”
Henry David Thoreau to his graduating class at Harvard, 1837, cited by Wendell Berry in a sermon reprinted in Harpers magazine March 1988
In my latest piece for NP Platformed (subscription only, so please get one if you haven’t already) I deplore the tendency of courts to uphold breaches of our rights on sociological not legal grounds.
“The lack of the fabulous may make my work dull. But I shall be satisfied if it be thought useful by those who wish to know the exact character of events now past, which, human nature being what it is, will recur in similar or analogous form.”
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian Wars, cited by Robert L. Formaini in Foreword to Garet Garrett and Murray N. Rothbard, The Great Depression and New Deal Monetary Policy
In my latest National Post column I say thinking you’ll win the drug war by eliminating one major dealer is like thinking you’ll get people to stop eating by closing their current grocery store.
In my latest Epoch Times column I ask why the “most important” election “since 1945 and certainly in our lifetimes” didn’t feature any useful discussion of causing inflation by printing money instead of creating wealth.