“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.”
C.P. Snow The Two Cultures [he calls this “Schiller’s helpful line”]
“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.”
C.P. Snow The Two Cultures [he calls this “Schiller’s helpful line”]
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the chronic resistance to systemic principled thought in Canadian public policy means we have protectionist politicians who think they’re for free trade, as they’re censors who think they favour free speech.
“To grab yourself more thinking time, Alan Connor of BBC News Magazine advises: ‘The most common advice boils down to something that might seem obvious: Only work when you’re being paid to work. The rest of the day is yours to do with as you wish - and you may wish to devote it to thought. Obvious, perhaps, but not obvious enough that we do it: ... between 50 and 80 per cent of us skip an actual break for lunch, let alone using the hour for quiet contemplation. You might not have heard the unspeakable expression “eating al desko,” but if you’ve been in an office, you’ve probably witnessed the sorry spectacle of a workstation becoming a dining table for seven minutes and a hastily chomped panino.’”
“Social Studies” in Globe & Mail August 1, 2008
“Despite these appearances the ancient faith was diseased at the bottom and at the top. The deification of the emperors revealed not how much the upper classes thought of their rulers, but how little they thought of their gods. Among educated men philosophy was whittling away belief even while patronizing it.... The rich youths who went to Athens, Alexandria, and Rhodes for higher education found no sustenance there for the Roman creed. Greek poets made fun of the Roman pantheon, and Roman poets leaped to imitate them. The problems of Ovid assumed that the gods were fables; the epigrams of Martial assumed that they were jokes; and no one seems to have complained.”
Will Durant Caesar and Christ
“Though we observe the higher law/ and though we have our quarrel just,/ Were I permitted to withdraw/ You wouldn’t see my arse for dust./ A soldier’s verse”
First of three header quotations in Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era on Section or Chapter VII
In my latest Loonie Politics column I deplore the Canadian habit of windy high-minded speeches and empty measures in a dangerous world.
“It seems to me this pleasure-mad generation has lost the art of enjoyment.”
G.K. Chesterton in Gloucestershire Echo, Oct. 26, 1925, quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #1 (September-October 2024)
In my latest National Post column I point to a troubling pattern of Prime Minister Mark Carney lying constantly, brazenly and recklessly about things big and small, including his personal conflicts of interest, without thus far facing any consequences.