"What other paths were there? His studies had shown him that revolution and evolution were the only ways that societies ever truly changed. Revolution and evolution, built of a mix of education and violence and politics and compromise and self-interest and self-preservation. Certainly, history showed that rigid societies, like ancient dinosaurs, always died. The Confed was the biggest dinosaur ever, and while it was already dying and had been doing so for a long time, it would take many years before it finally fell. Any empire which had to hold its citizens in check with military force was far down the road to destruction. Which brought up another thought: what would replace the dead beast when it began to rot? What parasite would emerge from the corpse to try and breed itself into superiority?"

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“Could he use the same excuse as the Confed—the end justified the means? Sometimes it did, of course, but could one ethically justify using the same methods as a deplored enemy, in order to get it to stop?”

““One who searches for the definition ‘devious’ can find it listed under ‘human.’”

“He had thought about it. Mostly, after the fantasies, he had let it go. It was done, history. No point in bumping into the furniture while looking back over your shoulder.”

“The loudest sound on a battle field was click! when you were expecting bang! It was a never-ending wonder: What was going to go wrong next?”

“Rich people seldom run amok; They hire somebody to do that for them.”

“Desire, she realized, was a thick fog that could completely obscure reality.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Looking back on Rome's success, it is all too easy to conclude that its victories were preordained. It is almost as if Rome arose with consummate certainty from the seven hills, gaining such a height …"

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Education1930

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"Reading Capital forms the prelude to a wave of Spinoza receptions, in which seventeenth-century metaphysics is shifted far beyond Marxism into the radiant presence of structuralist philosophy. While a…"

— Baruch Spinoza

Philosophy1632–1677

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"If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction."

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Politics1882–1945

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