Those who think they are the future can’t tell you half as much about it as those who know they are the past.
Dec 032019
Remembering
The obscurest epoch is today.
—Stevenson
Nov 292019
Many modern ills trace to the fateful decision to teach stupid people how to read.
Nov 192019
The nostalgia is not for poverty but for the social bonds that poverty demands and cements.
Oct 312019
Journalism is the first draft of history, shortly to reside with all other first drafts.
Oct 152019
The past also judges us, less indulgently than the future will.
Oct 112019
Civilization is always under attack, always crumbling, always burning; it ends when we can no longer repel the invaders, shore up the foundations, and extinguish the flames.
Sep 272019
History is lenient with the vicious and powerful victims of tyrants still more vicious and powerful.
Sep 122019
Yesterday’s distant dream, today’s brilliant innovation, tomorrow’s basic human right.
Jul 172019
It is simple to cheat an honest man; and one of the great themes of modern history is honest men getting cheated.
Jun 252019
Discursive prose was a brief and happy interlude in human history: at the beginning were drums and chants, and so it shall be at the end.