Adam Sparkes

“All the achievements of the Putin era so far – the economic growth, the increase in incomes, the riches of the billionaires that had turned Moscow into a gleaming metropolis where sleek foreign cars filled the streets and cosy cafés opened on street corners – boiled down to the sharp increase in the oil price during the Putin years, they agree.”
― Catherine Belton, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West

“The day arrived when he stood to take the oath, at which point the chief justice ordered him to take off his turban. Gandhi saw his true limitations then. He knew that resistance would be justified, but believed in picking his battles, so he took off his headgear. His friends were upset. They said he was weak, that he should have stood up for his beliefs. But Gandhi felt that he had learned “to appreciate the beauty of compromise.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“When you start considering things not as obligations but as opportunities, you start taking advantage of them rather than trying to avoid them.”
― Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

“What qualities you admire most in other people. (This is what you most like about yourself.)”
― Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think