Quotations

"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac." George Orwell, who based the Ministry of Truth in 1984 on the BBC in which he worked during the war.

“The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” Winston Churchill, quoted by Andrew Bacevich

"It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences. Further, an optical illusion comes with the dominance of the minority: a naive observer would be under the impression that the choices and preferences are those of the majority."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game

“We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing." Fyodor Dostoevsky

"If you knew how quickly people forget the dead you would stop living to impress people." Christopher Walken

“He who is a friend to himself is a friend to all mankind.” Seneca

"All man's problems are caused by his not being able to sit quietly alone in a room." Pascal

"You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday." Swift

"In 20 years, Russia will be the only country that is recognisably European." Ann Coulter in 2017. In fact, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova have far fewer non-whites than Russia. So does Romania and most of Eastern Europe, though this will not be so in 2037. Muslims in Russia numbered 14 million or roughly 10% of the total population, a much higher proportion than in Western countries, but many of them are white, like the Tartars, Russia's second biggest ethnic minority. Ethnic Russians are 72% of Russia's population but many of the 28% are Slavs and Caucasians.

“I think that either Europe reverts back to being Christian or it will be Muslim. It seems to me that what actually has no future is the “culture of nothingness,” which appears to be vastly predominant among the people of Europe, rich in means and poor in truth: a content-free and limitless freedom, a scepticism boasted of as if it were an intellectual accomplishment." Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Archbishop of Bologna, who died in 2015.

"A storyteller is the one who keeps the memories of a people alive. They are the guardians of our history and the weavers of our future.” Jim Henson

"A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short." Schopenhauer

"The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.” Cicero