“Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.” --Mark Twain, “The Gorky Incident
“PEDANTRY may be defined, for the purpose of this book, as the saying of things in language so learned or so demonstratively accurate as to imply a slur upon the generality, who are not capable or not desirous of such displays. The term, then, is obviously a relative one; my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education, & someone else’s ignorance.” --H.W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage
I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident. -- Henry Kissinger
Elections give the illusion of freedom but are in
fact a game among the powers that be, this is
why we talk of "formal democracy."
Instead of drawing forth the best energies of a
people, this legal institution hands actual control
to very different forces, turning democracy into
another form of oligarchy and dictatorship.
--Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
_The Future Of Mankind_ [1958], Chapter 17
Enthusiasm for a medium that keeps you away from human beings strikes me
as worrying.~ Ian Hislop 1960- (1996)
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