HUMAN FRAGILITY
Lewis Thomas:
This [the universe] is a very big place, and I do not know how it works, nor how I fit in.
EPHEMERALITY
Christopher Woodward:
… when we contemplate ruins, we contemplate our own future. To statesmen, ruins predict the fall of Empires, and to philosophers the futility of mortal man’s aspirations.
TRIBAL NATIONALISM
Hannah Arendt:
Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by a “world of enemies,” “one against all,” that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others.
WRITING ABSTRACTS THE EMBODIED CONCRETE
Claire Messud:
We were embodied, animals still and always; our words emanated, became separate from us – wasn’t this precisely the magic of writing, to send a construct of words into the world, to share the abstract as if it were, as if it had been made, real, had become a concrete experience, the way a composer and orchestra created music or an architect and builders a tower?
UNDERSTANDING, FRAMEWORKS, AND INTERPRETATION
Seyla Benhabib:
Understanding always means understanding within a framework that makes sense for us, from where we stand today.
RESPONDING TO AN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
I’m reluctant to say much about yesterday’s attempt to kill Donald Trump. There’s too much that I don’t know, especially about the motivations of the shooter.
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