Stephanie (Bookfever)

“The church sought to lock society inside an echo chamber, allowing the spread only of those books that supported it, and people trust the church because almost all the books supported it. Even illitirate laypersons who didn't read books were still awed by recitations of these precious texts or expositions on those content. That's how the belief in a supposedly infallible superhuman technology like the New Testament led to the rise of an extremely powerful but fallible human institution like the Catholic Church that crushed all opposing views as 'erroneous' while allowing no one to question its own views.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

“In opposition to 1 Timothy, during the second, third and fourth centuries CE there were important Christian texts that saw women as equal to men, and even authorised women to occupy leadership roles, like the Gospel of Mary or the Acts of Paul and Thecla.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

“In Caesar, egotism, ambition, talent, ruthlessness, vision, populism, and revolution came together in a way that is still today best summed up in his name—Caesar. Caesar waded through rivers of blood in Gaul while Brutus carried the bloodiest dagger of Roman history, and yet each radiated personal charm.”
― Barry S. Strauss, The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination