Nick

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.”
― Peter Drucker

“What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?” “Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced—from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being.”
― David Foster Wallace

“We have liberty, independence, and life with wide horizons. Here you are free and not a mere slave of society. . . . Here one is everything! Warrior, diplomat, trader!! Why not!” For such people, just as for the humbly born Stanley, the Congo offered a chance for a great rise in status. Someone fated for a life as a small-town bank clerk or plumber in Europe could instead become a warlord, ivory merchant, big game hunter, and possessor of a harem.”
― Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost