“...the Confederacy of the Humbled is a close-knit brotherhood whose members travel with no outward markings, but who know each other at a glance. For having fallen suddenly from grace, those in the Confederacy share a certain perspective. Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense. They certainly do not scour the papers in search of their own names. They remain committed to living among their peers, but they greet adulation with caution, ambition with sympathy, and condescension with an inward smile.”
― A Gentleman in Moscow
― A Gentleman in Moscow
“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, 'although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,' wrote Orwell, tends to be 'uninterested in what happens in the real world.' Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism 'has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.'
A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”
― On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”
― On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
“The British ambassador Rodric Braithwaite wrote: “Perfectly sensible Russians froth at the mouth if it is suggested that the Ukraine (from which they all trace their history) might go off on its own.” Russian-Ukrainian relations “are as combustible as those in Northern Ireland: but the consequences of an explosion would be far more serious.”
― Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union
― Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union
“Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it … But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”
― Desire: Vintage Minis
― Desire: Vintage Minis
“We did not make this world...and our childhood inclinations about how to succeed in it turn out to be wrong: often our courage is needed not to dramatically change reality but to accept it and persist in it.”
― Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
― Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
Ask Gary Shteyngart - Friday, March 7th!
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Join us on Friday, March 7th, for a special discussion with author Gary Shteyngart! The author will be discussing his book Little Failure. Become a f ...more
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Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
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