Steve Schiff

“The size of the electorate, the impossibility of educating it sufficiently, the fierce ignorance of these millions of semi-literate, priest-ridden and parson-ridden people have gotten me to the point where I want to confine the actions of majorities.”
― Brenda Wineapple, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation

“Judaism emphasizes intelligence—textually, ritualistically, and culturally. Everything is learning, everything preparation, perpetually filling the mental toolbox until we are prepared for any situation (and it is too heavy to carry). Jews make up 0.2 percent of the world’s population, but have been awarded 22 percent of all Nobel Prizes—24 percent if you don’t include the Peace Prize. And with no Nobel for Being Exterminated, there was a decade when Jews wouldn’t have had much of a chance, so the practical percentage is yet higher. Why? It’s not because Jews are any smarter than anyone else; it’s because Jews put their emphasis on the kinds of things Stockholm rewards. Jews have been training for Nobel Prizes for thousands of years. But if there were Nobel Prizes for Contentment, for Feeling Safe, or for the Ability to Let Go, that 22 percent—24 percent without Peace—would need a parachute.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

“They had used the prerogatives of democracy to destroy the hopes of democracy.”
― Brenda Wineapple, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation

“Add that to your table of definitions for what it means to be a human being. We make things that we hope will be bigger than us, and then we’re desolate when that’s what they become.”
― Richard Powers, Playground