“That was by no means the first time the question had arisen whether he was more pigheaded than I was strong-minded.”
Archie Goodwin’s internal monologue re himself and Nero Wolfe in Rex Stout “Murder is Corny” in Trio for Blunt Instruments
“All bad language necessarily weakens itself by use.”
G.K. Chesterton in The Bookman December 1931 quoted in “More About Language” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)
“If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a d*** fool about it.”
W.C. Fields, quoted in the features on a DVD of six classic W.C. Fields shorts [I cast my net widely].
After describing the origins, wars, foreign intrigues etc. surrounding the big-endian/little-endian schism he claims the holy book says “‘that all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end.’ And which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion to be left to every man’s conscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine.”
Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels
In my latest Epoch Times column I say one reason Canadian politicians are struggling to respond to Trump’s tariff threats is that most of them are closet mercantilists who just say they favour and understand free trade.
“A recent article on the left-wing website Rabble.ca, of all places, accused him [Jack Layton] of being ‘a political doughnut ... All sugar icing on the outside ... and a big hole right in the middle.’”
Adam Radwanski in Ottawa Citizen April 1, 2004
In my latest Loonie Politics column I complain that provincial conservative first minister Doug Ford is just as contemptuous of the legislature as federal liberal first minister Justin Trudeau… and legislators and we citizens let him get away with it.
“WHEN WE START DOWN the path of reading books that are true, we run the risk of no longer being able to understand an illiterate culture. Here are three examples and a farce. Nancy Pelosi, speaking to the press about Barack Obama after his election victory said, ‘Obama has the Midas touch!’ The crowd cheered and applauded. In Canada – that patch of snowbound woods directly north of New England – Peter MacKay, a Conservative, explained why they had just lost the election to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. He blamed social conservatives and pro-lifers who were ‘a stinking albatross’ around the neck of the Conservative Party. The press praised his acumen. A third example: I heard a radio advertisement about a head-hunting business that specializes in finding the right employees for other businesses. They claim that they are able to find the right person just like ‘Finding the needle in the hay stack!’”
David Beresford in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023)