Razvan

“But as it happened, a team of chemists in Germany had recently managed to refine morphine into a new drug, heroin, which the German pharmaceutical company Bayer began to mass market as a wonder drug—a safer alternative to morphine. Heroin was created by the same research team that invented aspirin.”
― Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

“quarter of Americans over age 65 were classified by the Census Bureau as living in poverty until the late 1960s. There is a widespread belief along the lines of, “everyone used to have a private pension.” But this is wildly exaggerated. The Employee Benefit Research Institute explains: “Only a quarter of those age 65 or older had pension income in 1975.” Among that lucky minority, only 15% of household income came from a pension. The New York Times wrote in 1955 about the growing desire, but continued inability, to retire: “To rephrase an old saying: everyone talks about retirement, but apparently very few do anything about it.”6 It was not until the 1980s that the idea that everyone deserves, and should have, a dignified retirement took hold. And the way to get that dignified retirement ever since has been an expectation that everyone will save and invest their own money.”
― Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

“I remembered how Alfred Stieglitz, by making the altogether too-perfect images of Brancusi’s sculptures, provoked Brancusi to grab up his own camera and overexpose, blur, and generally screw up his way to photographic sublimity.”
― Sally Mann, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs

“Be nicer and less flashy. No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are. You might think you want a fancy car or a nice watch. But what you probably want is respect and admiration. And you’re more likely to gain those things through kindness and humility than horsepower and chrome.”
― Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money