“What an astonishing thing a book is… one glance at it & you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly & silently inside your head, directly to you.
Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. #Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
- Carl Sagan
@hfb @flexghost @enoch
They do seem to love their anti-heros: Ivan Grozny' to name one; men consumed by their own power. Some blame geography and climate, others the vodka. Leo is my man and puts it best.
"Thoughts that have important consequences are always simple. All my thinking could be summed up with these words: 'Since corrupt people unite amongst themselves to constitute a force, then honest people must do the same.' It's as simple as that."
Leo Tolstoy
Heavily armed Russian mercenaries who advanced most of the way to Moscow began turning back on Saturday, de-escalating a major challenge to President Vladimir Putin's grip on power, in a move their leader said would avoid bloodshed.
Sheril Kirshenbaum
Diesel