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Tom
https://www.goodreads.com/tomjtanguaygmailcom
“People easily understand that ‘primitives’ cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. The domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal practices that only became crueller with the passing of the centuries.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“Failure to summon forth the courage to risk a nondogmatic and nonevasive stance on such crucial existential matters can also blur our ethical vision. If our actions in the world are to stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by either dogma or prevarication. Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.”
― Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
― Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
“The natural lifespan of wild chickens is about seven to twelve years, and of cattle about twenty to twenty-five years. In the wild, most chickens and cattle died long before that, but they still had a fair chance of living for a respectable number of years. In contrast, the vast majority of domesticated chickens and cattle are slaughtered at the age of between a few weeks and a few months, because this has always been the optimal slaughtering age from an economic perspective. (Why keep feeding a cock for three years if it has already reached its maximum weight after three months?) Egg-laying hens, dairy cows and draught animals are sometimes allowed to live for many years. But the price is subjugation to a way of life completely alien to their urges and desires. It’s reasonable to assume, for example, that bulls prefer to spend their days wandering over open prairies in the company of other bulls and cows rather than pulling carts and ploughshares under the yoke of a whip-wielding ape.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same: What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?”
― Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
― Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Exceptional Books
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— last activity Sep 20, 2025 02:26PM
This book club is ONLY for books that are WRITTEN VERY WELL and have a GREAT STORY LINE. We ask that each member shelve at least 2 exceptional books ...more
Tom’s 2025 Year in Books
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