“it must be said that since the birth of the most famous of analysts, Prince Hamlet, analysis, as the supreme quality of a character, is never divorced from Hamletism. That is, an intellect that dominates everything is a source of softening of the will and indecisiveness in action. With Martov, who was a thinking apparatus par excellence, the centers of restraint were too strong to allow him the free and reckless acts of combat, the revolutionary feats that no longer demand the reason, but only the will.”

Nikolai N. Sukhanov The Russian Revolution 1917: A Personal record by N.N. Sukhanov

“But blind stupidity is not one of the virtues…”

Dr. Bocker in John Wyndham The Kraken Wakes

In my latest Epoch Times column I say the death of Rex Murphy is a terrible loss especially because we have also lost the kind of place he held in our national life.

“It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm mental fog.”

Joseph Conrad, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail Oct. 19, 1999

“For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.”

“Larry Eisenberg (1919-), U.S. science-fiction writer” quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail March 16, 2011

“Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe it’s just a cosmic coincidence. For many TikTok users, the moon phase trend affirms that they did find their soulmates. TikTok users are comparing the moon phases of the days they were born to those of their significant others — if the phases fit together to make a perfect full moon, according to the trend, they’re soulmates. If there are gaps between the overlapped moons, the relationship is supposedly doomed to fail.”

NBC March 6, 2023 [and filed in my notes under “How we laugh at the superstitious past”]

“If the eighteenth century claimed to be the Age of Reason, nobody can deny the claim of the twentieth century to be the Age of Unreason.”

G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly, Nov. 1, 1930, as header quotation on Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)

“They intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.”

“Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), English author” quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail Dec. 17, 2010