"A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian."

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“Evidently you do not trust me. This does not predispose me to trust you.”

“My fees are not too high. Your wage scale may simply be too low.”

“My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.”

““Why not alter the habits of a lifetime and speak with candour?” asked Shimrod. “Truth, after all, need not be only the tactic of last resort.”

“I suspect that the word was invented by second-rate intelligences to describe the incomprehensible activities of their betters.”

“Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists.”

Resonant Thoughts

"...we need not shed tears over what has happened and we can look forward – not be forward looking, but look forward – to an era which will be as good as the one which has gone before."

— Mohammad Hidayatullah

Politics1905–1992

#war

"What a swarm of sophists you lot have swirled up!"

— Cratinus

Literature-499–420

#war

"To be an existentialist, one must be able to feel oneself — one must know one’s desires, one’s rages,one’s anguish, one must be aware of the character of one’s frustration and know what would satisfy …"

— Norman Mailer

Literature1923–2007

#knowledge

"We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love. To defend what we love we need a particularizin…"

— Wendell Berry

Literature1934

#writing