“A city that outdistances man’s walking powers is a trap for man.”
— Arnold Toynbee
Consider ancient Athens or Renaissance Florence
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/ Something Wise / Consider ancient Athens or Renaissance Florence
Disheartening but true
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/ Something Wise / Disheartening but true
“You should never ask a historian to predict the future—we have enough trouble predicting the past.”
A.J.P. Taylor
The fragility of things
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/ Something Wise / The fragility of things
I do not believe that civilizations have to die because civilization is not an organism. It is a product of wills.
— Arnold Toynbee
And so Twitter was invented
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/ Something Wise / And so Twitter was invented
The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
— Edward Gibbon
So let that be a lesson to you
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/ Something Wise / So let that be a lesson to you
“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure”.
— Thucydides
The Melian Dialogue
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/ Something Wise / The Melian Dialogue
“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
— Thucydides
But what else is Facebook for?
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/ Something Wise / But what else is Facebook for?
“I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.”
— Edward Gibbon
No, it’s more fun than that
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/ Something Wise / No, it’s more fun than that
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
— Edward Gibbon
Look up the etymology of “idiot”
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/ Something Wise / Look up the etymology of “idiot”
“We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing”
— Pericles, in Herodotus Histories
What? No video games?
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/ Uncategorized / What? No video games?
“Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.”
— Tacitus