Quote of the day

 "'My brother shouldn't have treated me in this way.' Indeed, he shouldn't, but it's for him to see to that. For my part, however he treats me, I should conduct myself towards him as I ought. For that is my business, and the rest is not my concern. In this no one can hinder me, while everything else is subject to hindrance." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.10

This is something I attempt to put into practice but sometimes have difficulty with. I find that ego and pride can get in the way. What's ironic is that often when we feel wronged by someone we retaliate in such a way that we become like the person we feel wronged by. It's why Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote in his journal that the best revenge is to be unlike the person who wronged you. This is quite a remarkable sentiment considering how many other Emperors were perfectly content to use their power to take the more traditional vindictive and violent revenge. 

Once one can get past the ego and follow this advice, a new kind of tranquility arises. What we commonly feel to be the slight at being "treated in this way" is what Epictetus calls being hindered because you're trying to control what is not in your power to control; but if you can learn to recognize what's not in your control and let go, peace of mind can be found.

Quote of the day

"[F]rom such crooked wood as a human is made can nothing quite straight ever be fashioned." - Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Rigor" (1784) 

In other words, no one is perfect. Or, more specifically, no one ever can be. 

Quote of the day

 "Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (circa 171- 175 CE)

There are various translations of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius's journal in which he practiced his Stoicism but the gist of what he is saying here is that it is not events in themself that cause us harm, but the judgements and opinions we form that cause the harm. If you can let go of the feeling that something harms you or has happened to you, and see it instead as just something that has happened, then, as Epictetus put it "you will not be harmed."* This seems like such an obvious truth but is often easier to say than do, which is why Marcus wrote this note to himself, he is reminding himself to put this psychological technique into practice.** And, more broadly, is why Meditations is such a remarkable text: it is the personal journal of someone who at the time was one of the most powerful people on the planet, and it reveals that what he was most concerned with was not riches, fame, power, or revenge, but training himself to be a better, kinder, wiser and more just person.

*This is no coincidence. Aurelius was heavily influenced by the teachings of Epictetus.

**He reminds himself again later in the journal: "It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul, for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements."

Quote of the day

"Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre

Quote of the day

 "Through doubting we question, and through questioning we perceive the truth." - Peter Abelard

Via The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization by Arthur Herman

Quote of the day

 So if you want to be beautiful for your own part, you should strive to achieve this, the excellence that characterizes a human being.

'But what is it?'

Consider who it is that you praise when you praise people dispassionately: is it those who are just, or unjust? - 'Those who are just.' - The temperate or the intemperate? - 'The temperate.' - The self-controlled or the dissolute? - 'The self-controlled.' - You should know, then, that if you make yourself a person of that kind, you'll be making yourself beautiful; but if you neglect these virtues, you're bound to be ugly, whatever techniques you adopt to make yourself appear beautiful.

- Epictetus, Discourses 3.1

Learning something new (about Plato)

I'm on a streak of reading books related to the most well known ancient Greek philosophers, having just finished The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle by Neel Burton, and and now diving into
The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization by Arthur Herman which, as a partisan for Aristotle, I'm quite enjoying. (Next I will read Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages by Richard Rubenstein.)

While I knew about Plato having originated the myth of Atlantis in his Timaeus I did not know, or have forgotten if I ever knew previously, that, as Herman puts it in The Cave and the Light in a section detailing the influence of Plato's creation mythology, "the word Plato uses for his ordered creation, genesis, will become the title of the first book of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible."

Quote of the day

"To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately." - Montaigne, Essays (1580)

This quote comes via Sarah Bakewell in her magisterial book* on Montaigne, How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, which is in a section of the book explaining how Montaigne drew upon the practical wisdom of the ancient Greek Stoics and Epicureans on how to live a life well. 

*There are very few books of nonfiction that I would more highly recommend than How to Live.

Quote of the day

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." - Mathew 7:13, NKJB

Came across this quote via Wide is the Gate by Upton Sinclair, the fourth of his 11 book Lanny Budd historical fiction series. The title is fitting as the novel is set between 1934 - 1937 and deals with the rise of fascism in Europe. I also just appreciate the quote, which I choose to interpret as thus: there are many ways to do wrong or be wrong, but usually very few ways, or a specific way to be right or do well. And even when we may know the right thing to do, it's not necessarily easy to do it, or the choice we're inclined to make. As the character Morpheus tells Neo in the 1999 film The Matrix, "there's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path."

Quote of the day

 "[Zeno] said that well-being is attained little by little, yet it is no little thing itself. Some attribute this saying to Socrates." - Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (3rd century CE)

Putting it in perspective

"[E]ach sees what is present in their heart." - Goethe, Faust (1831)

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” - Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

In my mind I turn to this Anne Frank quote frequently. I use it as a talisman to ward off pessimistic thoughts about the state of humanity. If a 13/14 year old in hiding from genocidal fascists who would eventually cause her death in a concentration camp could find it in herself to maintain this sentiment, then I can certainly stand to look for the best in people; or, rather, do whatever small part I can to promote kindness over cruelty, justice over injustice, and tolerance over intolerance.

Quote of the day

From The Enchiridion by Epictetus:

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you will not be harmed. 

This is the opening line of the text and demonstrates what a remarkable teacher Epictetus was, as this so succinctly cuts to the core bedrock principle of Stoicism. That he was a Roman slave (his true name is unknown, epictetus translates to "acquired one") who gained his freedom and then through his teaching (what we have of his is essentially lecture notes compiled by his student Arrian) was able to influence generations for thousands of years (and counting) makes it even more impressive and inspiring.

Quote of the day

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it." - Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

This is one of the all time great opening lines of any text I have encountered. 

Quote of the day

"Doubt grows with knowledge." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Quote of the day

"That was the pattern of this new society, as Lanny came to know it; boundless cruelty combined with bland and pious lying. The Fascisti would develop falsehood into a new science and a new art; they would teach it to one dictator after another, until half the human race would no longer have any means of telling truth from falsehood." - Upton Sinclair, Between Two Worlds

Latest discount book buys

These are my most recent pick-ups from the library book sale, at a cost of a dollar each.

- Athenian Democracy (pb) by A.H.M. Jones

- The Beauty of the Beastly: New Views of the Nature of Life (hc) by Natalie Angier

- The Years of Talking Dangerously (hc) by Geoffrey Nunberg

- Escape (hc) by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer

- The Best of Years: America in the Clinton Years (hc) by Haynes Johnson

- Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee (hc) by Charles J. Shields

- Emerson: The Mind on Fire (hc) by Robert D. Richardson Jr.

- Sister Carrie (pb) by Theodore Dreiser

- The Politics of Aristotle (pb) edited & translated by Ernest Barker

- John Stuart Mill (pb) by Alan Ryan

- Aristarchus of Samos: The Ancient Copernicus (pb) by Sir Thomas Heath

- Jonathan Swift, A Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography (hc) by David Nokes

- At Home: Essays 1982-1988 (hc) by Gore Vidal

- Jonathan Swift: A Portrait (hc) by Victoria Glendinning

- Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life (hc) by Niles Eldredge

- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (hc) by Doris Kearns Goodwin

- An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood (hc) by Jimmy Carter

- Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy (hc) by Joseph E. Stiglitz

- House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power (hc) by James Carroll

I had purchased a copy of Escape previously, but this one is mint new. The other I will donate back. 

Latest discount book buys

All a hardcover edition and for $1 each thanks to the local library book sale.

- A Most Wanted Man by John le Carre

- Closing Time by Joseph Heller

- Anathem by Neal Stephenson

- Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

- The Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind

- Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind

- Confessor by Terry Goodkind

- Phantom by Terry Goodkind

- Chainfire by Terry Goodkind

Had been thinking I'd like to read the sequel to Catch-22 recently, so finding this nearly pristine copy of Closing Time was a bit serendipitous. All of the Goodkind books are brand new donation copies; have never read any of this fantasy series but figured at worst case I can donate the books back for the next sale if I don't care for them.

With the addition of A Most Wanted Man, I have several le Carre novels but have yet to get around to reading any.

I find Stephenson's writing to be a bit odd, as it can be both enjoyable and incredibly tedious to finish at the same time; Anathem looks as though it will fit this pattern for me.

Quote of the day

"If [conservatives] look honestly enough, they will realize the conservative information sphere has long been full of lies. The reason for this is that lying has been the most effective way to promote many of the policies favored by donor-class conservatives, and so they built an apparatus to invent and spread the best lies." - Josh Barro

Quote of the day

"You just want cruelty to beget cruelty. You're not superior to people who were cruel to you. You're just a whole bunch of new cruel people. A whole bunch of new cruel people, being cruel to some other people, who'll end up being cruel to you. The only way anyone can live in peace is if they're prepared to forgive. Why don't you break the cycle?" - Doctor Who, "The Zygon Inversion"

Quote of the day

"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting ... but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side." - Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

via Unstuck in Time: A Journey Through Kurt Vonnegut's Life and Novels by Gregory Sumner

Quote of the day

"Humanism in the modern sense of the term is the view that whatever your ethical system, it derives from your best understanding of human nature and the human condition in the real world." - AC Grayling, Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness

Most recent discount book buy

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (hc) by Lawrence Wright for $1.00.

Quote of the day

"In this election, we have the opportunity to repudiate not only Donald Trump but Trumpism, and not only Trumpism but the entire apparatus that gave us this man and this moment." - Corey Robin

Quote of the day

"It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. Life is long enough and our allotted portion generous enough for our most ambitious projects if we invest it all carefully. But when it is squandered through luxury and indifference, and spent for no good end, we realize it has gone, under the pressure of the ultimate necessity, before we were aware it was going. So it is: the life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully. Kingly riches are dissipated in an instant if they fall into the hands of a bad master, but even moderate wealth increases with use in the hands of a careful steward; just so does our life provide ample scope if it is well managed." - Seneca, "On the Shortness of Life"

More discount book buying

Went back to the library book sale and picked these up for a dollar each.

The Age of Uncertainty (hc) by John Kenneth Galbraith

Planet Earth (hc) by Jonathan Weiner

The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe Report (pb) by Timothy Ferris

The White Plague (hc) by Frank Herbert

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (hc) by James Gleick

The Ascent of Science (hc) by Brian Silver

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey Sachs

Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution (hc) by Steven Poole

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (hc) by Erik Larson

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World (hc) by Tony Horwitz

I already have a Kindle edition of Genius but will gladly add it in hardcover to my collection given my admiration for Feynman.

Latest discount book buys

Got these at the library book sale, $1 each.

Freedom: A Novel (hc) by Jonathan Franzen

Silent Spring (pb) by Rachel Carson

Mason and Dixon (hc) by Thomas Pynchon

The Blind Assassin: A Novel (hc) by Margaret Atwood

The Enemy Within: A Short History of Witch-hunting (hc) by John Demos

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (hc) by Eric Schlosser

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (hc) by Marion Nestle

What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (hc) by Michael Sandel

Contact (hc) by Carl Sagan

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (hc) by Natalie Angier

The Goldfinch: A Novel (hc) by Donna Tartt

Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech (hc) Craig Silverman

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap (hc) by Matt Taibbi

Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (hc) by Martha Nussbaum

The Physics of Star Trek (hc) by Lawrence Krauss

I already have Kindle editions of Silent Spring and The Divide but am happy to add them in print to my collection at such a bargain price; and I have a paperback copy of Fast Food Nation which I will be donating back to the library since I've now upgraded to hardcover.

Mason and Dixon, Regret the Error, The Canon and Food Politics are former library books which look mint and appear to have never been checked out. (What Money Can't Buy looks close to new, as well.) The Canon, The Divide, The Physics of Star Trek, and Not for Profit are donated new books; Fast Food Nation is used with someone's name inscribed in the first page but appears to have never been read. Contact is also a donation and a first edition that looks like it has been sitting on a store bookshelf somewhere since its original release.

And I didn't pick this up at the library sale, but Barnes & Noble had Superheroes!: Capes, Cowls, and the Creation of Comic Book Culture (hc) by Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor for $10, which I could not resist given how much I enjoyed the 3 part PBS documentary it is the companion to.

Latest discount book buy

Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War (hc) by James Risen for $1.00.

Quote of the day

"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end burn human beings." - Heinrich Heine (1820)

Heine's works were among those burned by the Nazis in 1933.

via Hitler's Philosophers by Yvonne Sherratt

Excerpt of the day

From Half a Crown by Jo Walton

"As soon as she's told them whatever it is they think she's holding out on, she'll be back with you ... She'll tell them soon. You've approved the [interrogation] methods at Finsbury yourself."

Carmichael wanted to say that he hadn't approved them for Elvira, for an innocent girl, but the words wouldn't come out of his mouth. He had approved them, and if he had approved them he had approved them for her, for anyone, for everyone.

Quote of the day

"[A]ny man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." - John Donne, Meditation XVII

Kim Davis and moral false equivalence

"This is like saying that Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus and the bus driver refusing to let black people on the bus would be morally equivalent, which is clearly false." - Ed Brayton, on those claiming Kim Davis is a hero of conscience

Quote of the day

"Think like philosophers. Pursue excellence, in this as in all things." - Jo Walton, The Philosopher Kings

Excerpt of the day

From Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey

"This isn't about good guys and bad guys," Anna said. "Yes, we've picked sides now, because some of the actions they are about to take will have serious consequences for us, and we're going to try to stop them. But what you're doing is demonizing them, making them the enemy. The problem with that is that is that once we've stopped them and they can't hurt us anymore, they're still demons. Still the enemy."

"Believe me," Tilly said, "when I get out of here, it will be my mission in life to burn Cortez to the ground for this."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

"He won't be on a ship trying to destroy the Ring anymore. He won't be supporting Ashford anymore. All of the circumstances that made him your enemy will be gone. What's the value in the clinging to the hate?"

Quotes from The Just City

From The Just City by Jo Walton (click here for a review of this excellent sci-fi/fantasy/philosophy book.)

• "You can't trust everything that ass Plato wrote," Sokrates said.
• Sokrates, of course, didn't ever see what he expected to see, he saw what was there and examined it.
• "Plato didn't have as much experience of humanity as he needed to write a book like the Republic," Sokrates said. "Perhaps nobody does."
• "There isn't an endpoint to excellence where you have it and you can stop. Being your best self means keeping on trying."

The difference

Tom Scocca, on why Brian Williams suffered for his false war correspondence claims, while Bill O'Reilly will suffer none for his

The reason why Brian Williams got into deep trouble for lying about his war experience while Bill O'Reilly hasn't is that Williams and O'Reilly have different jobs, for different employers. Brian Williams was paid to sit in front of a TV camera and give viewers an ostensibly neutral, agreeable account of current events. When people began disagreeing with Brian Williams about his presentation of facts, loudly and in public, it hurt his ability to perform those duties for NBC.

Bill O'Reilly is paid to go on television for Fox News and say things that get the viewers upset, even if those things are false or nonsensical. So what if his experience in the Falklands war was bogus? So is his experience in the War on Christmas. The fact that people are calling him dishonest simply proves, from Fox's point of view, that he's doing his job.

Look back, to look forward

New York Times editorial

Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes of torture sessions and those who may have gone beyond the torture techniques authorized by President George W. Bush. But the investigation did not lead to any charges being filed, or even any accounting of why they were not filed.

Mr. Obama has said multiple times that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as though the two were incompatible. They are not. The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down.

Latest discount book buys

Picked these up at the local library book sale, all a dollar each:

Alpha & Omega: The Search for the Beginning and the End of the Universe (hc) by  Charles Seife

Carl Sagan: A Life (hc) by Keay Davidson

An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal's Eight-Year Odyssey Inside the Heart of the Right-Wing Media (hc) by Joe Muto

Republic (pb) by Plato

The Road to Serfdom (pb) by F.A. Hayek

Mencken: A Life (hc) by Fred Hobson

Of these, I have previously read The Road to Serfdom and have listened to an audio book edition of Republic.

Excerpt of the day

From Cyberstorm by Matthew Mather

"Anytime there's even a hint of the government limiting the public's ability to buy guns, people go crazy about them taking away our freedom, but this new law that gives the government the right to spy into every aspect of your life, without your consent - barely a peep. A clear violation of the third and fourth amendments, but nobody says a word." He took a deep breath.

"You know what freedom really is?" demanded Rory. "Freedom is civil liberty, and the foundation of civil liberty is privacy. No privacy means no civil liberty means no freedom. You know why they don't just fingerprint everyone?"

"Seems like a good idea to me," laughed Chuck.

"Because once they have your fingerprints," continued Rory, ignoring Chuck, "you instantly become a subject in every crime. They'll run your fingerprints against everything they find at a crime. You go from being a free citizen to being a criminal suspect."

"And fingerprints are just one way of identifying you," added Damon. "Location, your face on a camera, things you buy - all your personal information creates a digital fingerprint."

Baleful quote of the day

"Today, another UN school was shelled in Gaza, killing ten, wounding many more, traumatizing countless others. These civilian deaths even in a place designated as a safe haven simply beggar belief. It is impossible to feel sympathy for either Israel or Hamas at this point. Hamas is daring Israel to kill more innocents; and Israel is eagerly obliging them. How many more children have to die to feed these zero-sum ambitions?" - Andrew Sullivan

Baleful quote of the day

"Israel, Hamas, and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza have been down this road before, and it has led only to death, destruction, distrust and a painful prolongation of the conflict." - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

Quotes of the day

From Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard by Russell Miller

On Scientology hagiographies of Hubbard: "Virtually none of this is true."

On Hubbard believing his fictional biography comprised of lies:

By then [L. Ron] Hubbard was nearly seventy years old and bad lived so long in a world of phantasmagoria that he was unable to distinguish between fact and his own fantastic fiction. He believed he was the teenage explorer, swashbuckling hero, sage and philosopher his biographies said he was. It was perhaps too late for him to comprehend that his life, in reality, far outstripped the fabricated version. He made the leap from penniless science-fiction writer to millionaire guru and prophet in a single, effortless bound; he led a private navy across the oceans of the world for nearly a decade; he came close to taking over control of several countries; he was worshipped by thousands of his followers around the world and was detested and feared by most governments.

Quote of the day

"The anti-abortion zealots are just awful people, really. They have absolutely no problem treating these girls and women absolutely horribly while proclaiming themselves to be saints. It's a truly disgusting display of cruelty in the name of God." - Digby

"Supporting our troops"

"Taken together, the far right’s dehumanization of the American soldier is clear. If he or she is willing to promote the Sarah Palin version of patriotism, honor and masculinity (or at least allow themselves to be used for that purpose), they are not human beings but rather legends and gods. And if they refuse, they lose their humanity once more, now becoming contemptible beyond all measure. Either way, they are not individuals — complex and mysterious and sacred — but rather means to an end that is, fundamentally, about their self-styled defenders’ ideological satisfaction. This, it seems to me, is an exceedingly twisted way to support our troops." - Elias Isquith

Further tales of elected Republicans who sound insane

"Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign-ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of mandatory sign-ups for 'train rides' for Jews in the 40s." - TN State Sen. Stacey Campfield

Yep, just like it. Can't think of any difference in the outcome of the ACA and Nazi death camps.

Quote of the day

"When our own nation is at war with any other, we detest them under the character of cruel, perfidious, unjust and violent: but always esteem ourselves and allies equitable, moderate and merciful. If the general of our enemies be successful, ’tis with difficulty we allow him the figure and character of a man. He is a sorcerer: he has a communication with daemons … he is bloody-minded and takes pleasure in death and destruction. But if the success be on our side, our commander has all the opposite good qualities, and is a pattern of virtue, as well as of courage and conduct. His treachery we call policy: his cruelty is an evil inseparable from war. In short, every one of his faults we either endeavor to extenuate, or dignify it with the name of virtue, which approaches it. ‘Tis evident that the same method of thinking runs thro’ common life.” - David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

via Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others by David Livingstone Smith

Quote of the day

"[N]o amount of after-the-fact sorrow could ever atone for joy taken in destruction, whether it was burning ants or shooting prisoners." - Stephen King, Under the Dome

Quote of the day

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of the nation, must begin by subduing the freedom of speech; a thing terrible to publick traitors." - John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon, Cato's Letters #15 (February 4, 1720)

Quote of the day

"She is the living representation of the infantilization of American politics, a poisonous Grimm Sister telling toxic fairy tales to audiences drunk on fear, and hate and nonsense. She respects no standards but her own. She is in perpetual tantrum, railing against her betters, which is practically everyone, and volunteering for the job of avatar to the country's reckless vandal of a political Id. It was the address of a malignant child delivered to an audience of malignant children." - Charles Pierce, on Sarah Palin's 2014 CPAC speech

Excerpt of the day

"[Ayn Rand] claimed to have created herself with the help of no one, even though she was the lifelong beneficiary of social democratic largesse. She got a college education thanks to the Russian Revolution, which opened universities to women and Jews and, once the Bolsheviks had seized power, made tuition free. Subsidizing theatre for the masses, the Bolsheviks also made it possible for Rand to see cheesy operettas on a weekly basis. After Rand's first play closed in New York City in April 1936, the Works Progress Administration took it on the road to theaters across the country, giving Rand a handsome income of $10 a performance throughout the late 1930s. Librarians at the New York Public Library assisted her with the research for The Fountainhead." - Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin

Baleful quote of the day

"[I]f the entire intelligence community thinks these reporters are either committing a crime or are an accomplice to one [for NSA reports based on Edward Snowden leaks], are they attempting to use this as a justification to target them with surveillance? This is the question the press should now be asking since we know it’s not just a fluke that intelligence officials are trying to paint journalists doing their job as criminals." - Trevor Timm