Doug

“L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it’s simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won’t have to hear the screams of the drowning.”
― Dennis Lehane, A Drink Before the War

“Atheists are just modern versions of religious fundamentalists: both take religion too literally.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“I started thinking about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was also visible in the distance. Click, click, click, twenty-one times, stop; turn around; pause twenty-one seconds; repeat. Click, click, click, twenty-one times, stop; turn around; pause twenty-one seconds; repeat. The heels of the guard on duty at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier click on the pavement twenty-four hours straight, seven days a week, 365 days a year, year in and year out. Rain, sleet, or snow never interrupts this routine. The only time it is interrupted is during the changing of the guard, which happens every thirty minutes. The whole routine then resumes until the next relief. There is much more behind the symbolism, sacrifices, and commitments of these dedicated warriors, but that’s a whole other story in itself.”
― Paul Landis, The Final Witness: A Kennedy Secret Service Agent Breaks His Silence After Sixty Years

“Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs
that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
— Niccolò Machiavelli”
― Martin Geddes, Open Your Mind to Change: A Guidebook to the Great Awakening