Matthew Hutchinson

“Because people who couldn’t imagine themselves capable of evil were at a major disadvantage in dealing with people who didn’t need to imagine, because they already were.”
― William Gibson, The Peripheral

“Slavery and other forms of bondage, of course, have not been obliterated from the face of the earth. As a result of recent publicity about the trafficking of people for labor and prostitution, one sometimes hears the statistically illiterate and morally obtuse claim that nothing has changed since the 18th century, as if there were no difference between a clandestine practice in a few parts of the world and an authorized practice everywhere in the world.”
― Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity

“Inclusive economic institutions require secure property rights and economic opportunities not just for the elite but for a broad cross-section of society.”
― Daron Acemoğlu, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

“The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books