Whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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Category Archives: zz35 – Quote Unquote
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Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.
~ Eric Hoffer
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Is there anything more satisfying than watching a debate in which the sophist gets defenestrated by someone smarter, better prepared, and obviously right?
~ Caitlin Flanagan via The Atlantic
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A delay in a balancing feedback loop makes the system likely to oscillate.
~ Donella Meadows
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Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.
~ John Ruskin
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Boeing’s latest screwups vividly dramatize a point often missed in laments of America’s manufacturing decline: that when global economic forces carried off some U.S. manufacturers for good, even the ones that stuck around lost interest in actually making stuff.
~ Jerry Useem via The Atlantic
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“The citizenry of a hyperpower are always inwardly focussed – barely aware of the rest of the world.”
~ Jasper John MacKay
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The moral confusion on too many campuses after the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis fits a familiar pattern. The acceptability of the speech depends on the speaker. Individuals from oppressed groups are given leeway to target oppressor groups through disruptions and threats. This victimology allows Palestinians and their supporters (the oppressed) to target, intimidate, and harass Jews (the oppressors).
~ Ben Sasse via The Atlantic
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Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome.
~ George Santayana
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Ever since time began, it’s been moving ever forward without a moment’s rest. And one of the privileges given to those who’ve avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old.
~ Haruki Murakami
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