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"The unreliability is becoming clearer and clearer. Stevens can’t be honest with us nor himself. And it is sad. He has his achievements that he is proud is that are clearly sullied by history. He claims to deny where he worked, but gives half baked reasons one can see straight through. Claims that greatness is defined by quality work for a proper end. But, he can’t bear to consider what if it is all nullified." — Mar 19, 2026 05:12AM
"The unreliability is becoming clearer and clearer. Stevens can’t be honest with us nor himself. And it is sad. He has his achievements that he is proud is that are clearly sullied by history. He claims to deny where he worked, but gives half baked reasons one can see straight through. Claims that greatness is defined by quality work for a proper end. But, he can’t bear to consider what if it is all nullified." — Mar 19, 2026 05:12AM
progress:
(44%)
"Dominy giving me heavy Robert Moses vibes. Begins idealistically, becomes a crusader, ends as a zealot. Appointed bureaucrat and not elected (eventually to head of bureau of reclamation). Threats to resign as a tool to maintain power. Eventual detachment from reality (Dams instead of freeways). Petty and grudge holding. Fascinating chapter. Re his upcoming, projects, new building." — Feb 11, 2026 12:47PM
"Dominy giving me heavy Robert Moses vibes. Begins idealistically, becomes a crusader, ends as a zealot. Appointed bureaucrat and not elected (eventually to head of bureau of reclamation). Threats to resign as a tool to maintain power. Eventual detachment from reality (Dams instead of freeways). Petty and grudge holding. Fascinating chapter. Re his upcoming, projects, new building." — Feb 11, 2026 12:47PM
“Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.”
―
―
“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
“If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.”
― 1Q84
― 1Q84
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.
Socrates taught us: 'Know thyself!”
― The Gulag Archipelago
During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.
Socrates taught us: 'Know thyself!”
― The Gulag Archipelago
Marc’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Marc’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
898 books
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49 friends
196 books
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141 friends
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