Erkam Evlice

“Dokuzyüz yıllık İslam hakimiyetinin silemediği bir kültürel mirası, cumhuriyetin Türklere sunduğu yeni ve sahte şecere başarıyla yokedebilmiş; binlerce yıldan beri bu ülkeyi Batı alemine bağlayan tarihi ve kültürel bağlar şaşırtıcı bir hızla toplum belleğinden dışlanabilmiştir. Tarihin en önemli düşünür, hukukçu, hekim, matematikçi, mimar, şair ve din adamlarının birkaçını yetiştirmiş bir ülke, atalarını bundan böyle Asya steplerinin eli palalı davar çobanları arasında aramaya alışacaktır.”
― Sevan Nişanyan, Yanlış Cumhuriyet: Atatürk ve Kemalizm Üzerine 51 Soru

“Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all.”
― David Lynch

“I learned that the world of men as it exists today is a bureaucracy. This is an obvious truth, of course, though it is also one the ignorance of which causes great suffering.

“But moreover, I discovered, in the only way that a man ever really learns anything important, the real skill that is required to succeed in a bureaucracy. I mean really succeed: do good, make a difference, serve. I discovered the key. This key is not efficiency, or probity, or insight, or wisdom. It is not political cunning, interpersonal skills, raw IQ, loyalty, vision, or any of the qualities that the bureaucratic world calls virtues, and tests for. The key is a certain capacity that underlies all these qualities, rather the way that an ability to breathe and pump blood underlies all thought and action.

“The underlying bureaucratic key is the ability to deal with boredom. To function effectively in an environment that precludes everything vital and human. To breathe, so to speak, without air.

“The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable.

“It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

“Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.”
― Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History?