Julia

“If it be questioned how the population of the country can supply sufficient numbers of these duties, and by what means they can be supported, we may answer, that all the idolaters, and likewise the Saracens, keep six, eight, or ten women, according to their circumstances, by whom they have a prodigious number of children. Some of them have as many as thirty sons capable of following their fathers in arms; whereas with us a man has only one wife, and even although she should prove barren, he is obliged to pass his life with her, and is by that means deprived of the chance of raising a family. Hence it is that our population is so much inferior to theirs.”
― Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo: The Venetian

“At the Alley Cat Allies conference, I sit through a very technical presentation on Tomahawk trap trip plates, postoperative temperature control, and other TNR mechanics. As the sober PowerPoint concludes, the presenter suddenly flashes a slide of an adorable feline neonate: "And this is my kitten Rex!" she says. The room explodes in squeals. It was a bit like ending a lecture on the war on drugs with a picture of a lit crack pipe—especially since there is actually some evidence that cats, like street drugs, have clinically compromised our minds.”
― Abigail Tucker, The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World

“A study commissioned by the NFL Players Association determined that recently retired pros (ages thirty to forty-nine) are nineteen times more likely to suffer from brain-trauma-related illness than—what's the right word here?—noncombatants.”
― Steve Almond, Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto

“The river was too low to allow the Magnet passage. Audubon proposed to Victor that they walk the 250 miles to Louisville and he agreed.”
― Richard Rhodes, John James Audubon: The Making of an American