William Mulock

Sir William Mulock PC KCMG MP QC LL.D (19 January 1843 – 1 October 1944) was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, educator, farmer, politician, judge, and philanthropist. He served as Postmaster-General, Canada's first Minister of Labour, and was the driving force in the federation of the University of Toronto. He retired from politics at age 62 because ill health required him to be less active, but subsequently became Chief Justice of Ontario, retiring at age 93, and Chancellor of the University of Toronto from 1924 until his death at age 101.

Sir William Mulock in 1896

Quotes

• Watch every tendency towards militarism, for we know that preparation for war leads to war.
  • Opening the Canadian National Exhibition, The Globe, 29 August 1906, page 1.

• A man feels impelled to do something to keep awake.
  • Toronto Star, 30 November 1928, reported in Columbo, John Robert (2000). Famous Lasting Words: Great Canadian Quotations. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. p. 571. 

• I'm still at work with my hand to the plough and my face to the future. The shadows of evening … lengthen about me but morning is in my heart. … the testimony I bear is this: that the castle of enchantment is not yet behind me, it is before me still and daily I catch glimpses of its battlements and towers. The best of life is always further on. The real lure is hidden from our eyes, somewhere behind the hills of time.
  • At age 87, A Complimentary Luncheon to The Right Honourable Sir William Mulock …. The Empire Club of Canada Addresses (13 February 1930).

• I did my own thinking … I have never given it out to be done by others as one gives out washing.
  • "Sir William Mulock Reviews the Past". The Newmarket Era (Newmarket, Ontario): pp. 1-2. 6 April 1934. 

• We need tolerant men. We must all give in a little.
  • "Criticism Written Without Knowledge". The Newmarket Era (Newmarket, Ontario): p. 1. 31 July 1941. 

• I'm not in the habit of looking back - I leave that till I get old.
  • On his 100th birthday, reported in Fethering, Douglas, ed (1988). The Broadview Book of Canadian Anecdotes. Peterborough: Broadview Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0921149293. 

Quotes about Mulock

• Will probably go down to posterity as 'The man who did.'
  • Toronto Telegram, after his retirement from politics in 1905, reported in Morgan, Henry James, ed (1912). The Canadian Men and Women of the Time: A Handbook of Canadian Biography of Living Characters. Toronto: William Briggs. pp. 833-834.