“But evil does not die, just as history does not end. Like a weed, evil can be cut back but never entirely uprooted. It waits for its chance to spread through the cracks in our vigilance. It can take root in the fertile soil of our complacency, or even the rocky rubble of the fallen Berlin Wall.”
― Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
― Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
“I have written about what I call “the gravity of past success” in chess. Each victory pulls the victor down slightly and makes it harder to put in maximum effort to improve further. Meanwhile, the loser knows that he made a mistake, that something went wrong, and he will work hard to improve for next time. The happy winner often assumes he won simply because he is great. Typically, however, the winner is just the player who made the next-to-last mistake. It takes tremendous discipline to overcome this tendency and to learn lessons from a victory.”
― Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
― Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
“It is better described as simple-mindedness: people are often attracted to authoritarian ideas because they are bothered by complexity. They dislike divisiveness. They prefer unity. A sudden onslaught of diversity—diversity of opinions, diversity of experiences—therefore makes them angry. They seek solutions in new political language that makes them feel safer and more secure.”
― Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
― Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
“The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. For those who become the one-party state’s gatekeepers, the repetition of these conspiracy theories also brings another reward: power.”
― Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
― Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
Goodreads Librarians Group
— 306578 members
— last activity 8 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
Mircea’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mircea’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Mircea
Lists liked by Mircea
























































