“Planted, a single corn seed yielded more than 150 fat kernels, often as many as 300, while the return on a seed of wheat was something less than 50:1”
― The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
― The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
“The mind is a flame. Blow it out, or it will blind you.”
― The Last Mortal Bond
― The Last Mortal Bond
“It was strange the way that people venerated truth. Everyone seemed to strive for it, as though it were some unalloyed good, a perfect gem of glittering rectitude. Women and men might disagree about its definition, but priests and prostitutes, mothers and monks all mouthed the word with respect, even reverence. No one seemed to realize how stooped the truth could be, how twisted and how ugly.”
― The Last Mortal Bond
― The Last Mortal Bond
“[Smil] estimates that two of every five humans on Earth today would not be alive if not for Fritz Haber's invention of the Haber-Bosch process.”
― The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
― The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
“People kill to get power, they kill to keep power, and they kill if they think they might lose it, which is pretty much always. Even if you and I both stay out of it, even if we both die, whoever came after us will keep coming. They’ll find the next threat, the next worrisome voice, the next person with the wrong name or the wrong skin. Maybe they’ll go after the rich for their coin or the peasants for their rice, the Bascans because they’re too dark or the Breatans because they’re too pale—it doesn’t matter.”
― The Providence of Fire
― The Providence of Fire
Raja’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Raja’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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