Frank

“In the 1950s, at the very beginning of the integration process, Raymond Aron wrote that “the European idea is empty, it has neither the transcendence of messianic ideologies nor the immanence of concrete patriotism.” Aron was half right. The idea of Europe did not evoke emotional commitment. It did not stir people’s hearts as nations sometimes had done. It was not something for which many would have been willing to give their lives. But the European idea was not empty—or rather, it only seemed empty when compared to the traditional idea of the nation. The European idea was full, not of national enthusiasm and patriotic passion, but of a widespread commitment to escape the destructive antagonisms of the past..”
― James J. Sheehan

“Stan got the message. He allowed the chicken assignations. What did that make him? A chicken pimp. Better that than dead.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last

“unlike birds, for instance, who keep building the same nest over thousands of years, we tend to forge ahead with our projects far beyond any reasonable bounds. Someone, he added, ought to draw up a catalogue of types buildings listed in order of size, and it would be immediately obvious that domestic buildings of less than normal size—the little cottage in the fields, the hermitage, the lockkeeper’s lodge, the pavilion for viewing the landscape, the children’s bothy in the garden—are those that offer us at least a semblance of peace, whereas no one in his right mind could truthfully say that he liked a vast edifice such as the Palace of Justice on the old Gallows Hill in Brussels. At the most we gaze at it in wonder, a kind of wonder which in itself is a form of dawning horror, for somehow we know by instinct that outsize buildings cast the shadow of their own destruction before them, and are designed from the first with an eye to their later existence as ruins.”
― W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz

“In the beginning, everything was void, and J. H. W. H. Conway began to create numbers. Conway said, "Let there be two rules which bring forth all numbers large and small. This shall be the first rule: Every number corresponds to two sets of previously created numbers, such that no member of the left set is greater than or equal to any member of the right set. And the second rule shall be this: One number is less than or equal to another number if and only if no member of the first number's left set is greater than or equal to the second number, and no member of the second number's right set is less than or equal to the first number." And Conway examined these two rules he had made, and behold! They were very good.
…
And Conway said, "Let the numbers be added to each other in this wise: The left set of the sum of two numbers shall be the sums of all left parts of each number with the other; and in like manner the right set shall be from the right parts, each according to its kind." Conway proved that every number plus zero is unchanged, and he saw that addition was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And Conway said, "Let the negative of a number have as its sets the negatives of the number's opposite sets; and let subtraction be addition of the negative." And it was so. Conway proved that subtraction was the inverse of addition, and this was very good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And Conway said to the numbers, "Be fruitful and multiply. Let part of one number be multiplied by another and added to the product of the first number by part of the other, and let the product of the parts be subtracted. This shall be done in all possible ways, yielding a number in the left set of the product when the parts are of the same kind, but in the right set when they are of opposite kinds." Conway proved that every number times one is unchanged. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And behold! When the numbers had been created for infinitely many days, the universe itself appeared. And the evening and the morning were N day.

And Conway looked over all the rules he had made for numbers, and saw that they were very, very good.”
― Donald Moses Knuth