Jonathan

“Sumner’s mind keeping the peace abroad was connected with freeing the slaves at home. Repeatedly he tried to convince Lincoln that by issuing an emancipation proclamation he could kill Confederate chances of recognition in Europe.”
― David Herbert Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man

“Real-life activities that do not have an online correlate begin to atrophy, or cease to be relevant. There is an insurmountable asymmetry that degrades any local event or exchange. Because of the infinity of content accessible 24/7, there will always be something online more informative, surprising, funny, diverting, impressive than anything in one's immediate actual circumstances. It is now a given that a limitless availability of information or images can trump or override any human scale communication or exploration of ideas.”
― Jonathon Crary

“these people of millennia past were not like us but with more dirt. Their beliefs were different, their prayers were different, their faith was different, their very thoughts were different, and yet we still live within their long shadows.”
― Ed Simon, Devil's Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain

“The movement toward equality still has a long way to go, especially in a world in which the poorest, and particularly the poorest in the poorest countries, are preparing to be subjected, with increasing violence, to climatic and environmental damage caused by the richest people’s way of life.”
― Thomas Piketty, A Brief History of Equality