Western man worships bluesmen the same way the ancient Egyptians worshipped cats.
Jul 272022
Remembering
The obscurest epoch is today.
—Stevenson
Jul 262022
The late 19th century was nearer in thought to the Romans than to us.
Jun 292022
Nearly every new law is bad, and nearly every old custom is good.
Jun 152022
The psychologists tell us that what we possess we hold too dear — except our inherited civilization, which we are ever eager to part with on the cheap.
Jun 142022
A memory lapse is a file not lost but only illegibly labeled; once located, its contents are generally intact.
May 302022
The evil, or good, that men do on a colossal scale lives after them; the rest is interred with their bones.
Apr 182022
Dead white men are to be disregarded in part because they are men, more because they are white, and most of all because they are dead.
Apr 142022
Few mourn dueling, but many mourn the qualities that once induced men to duel.
Feb 242022
There have been historically four ways of dealing with conquered people, corresponding to the four stages of civilization: kill them; enslave them; tax them; and supply them with money, weapons, military training, and ample reason for resentment, then leave.
Feb 112022
Civilization can never be other than a brief local interlude; it creates the conditions for its own destruction.