9 Quotes by Hugh MacLennan

There is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.

This campus was an island of quiet in the city's roar, and at night it was an island of dark in the city's blaze.

The Socialists can scheme their schemes and the Liberals can dream their dreams, but we, at least, have work to do.

The farmer’s way of saving money: to be owed by someone he trusted.

Man is a thinking animal, a talking animal, a toolmaking animal, a building animal, a political animal, a fantasizing animal. But, in the twilight of a civilization he is chiefly a taxpaying animal.

In comparison with a loving human being, everything else is worthless.

Love, sought as an escape from the burden of the self, turns rapidly into a captivity.

Happiness annihilates time.

People talk of calf-love with wistful disdain, but mine was as intense as any emotion I knew until I crossed the frontier, years later, when I discovered that all loving is a loving of life in the midst of death.