Cultural epochs used to last for centuries, then generations, then decades, now a year or two, and soon it will be fifteen minutes.
Jun 282017
Remembering
The obscurest epoch is today.
—Stevenson
Jun 222017
Memory is as cruel to others as it is kind to oneself.
Jun 052017
The list of people who achieve posthumous fame after a lifetime of obscurity is short, and will not include you.
Apr 282017
Spelling has gone the way of handwriting.
Apr 122017
The conquerors enslave the conquered, when the gap between them is small; when it is large, they exterminate them.
Mar 232017
Civilizations are created from the middle out and destroyed from the top down.
Feb 232017
History is hard to start and impossible to stop.
Feb 102017
Great innovations appear made by many simultaneously, because we consign to obscurity anyone more than a week or two ahead of his time.
Feb 082017
The medieval church had a juster claim as guardian of the life of the mind than the contemporary university.
Jan 052017
Historically killing deprived its victims only of life; the modern refinement is to deprive them first of agency.