Michael Norton

“All Demosthenes’ eloquence could never revive a body that luxury and the arts had enervated”
― John T. Scott, The Major Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Two Discourses and the Social Contract

“Theories abound about how progressive rock is intrinsically British, whereas in America few bands of this ilk emerged from the late 1960s into the 1970s. One accepted theory is that Europe is the birthplace of classical music, whereas in America, it is the nation’s rich blues-based tradition that informs rock history. That supports the theory that 400 years of classical music is in the blood over there”
― Martin Popoff, Time And A Word: The Yes Story

“had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?”
― Bram Stoker, Works of Bram Stoker

“the essence of being human is an uncomfortable duality of ‘rational’ technology and ‘irrational’ belief. We are still a species in transition. The unknown person of Time-Byte I had the rational, ‘scientific’ knowledge and skill to make a tallow lamp and also a set of beliefs that were the imperative for his or her apparently irrational underground journey. That duality in human behaviour did not disappear at the end of the Stone Age. Even in the twentieth century, people were ‘rational’ enough to travel to the moon and back and yet still ‘irrational’ enough to believe in supernatural entities and forces that transcend, and in effect make nonsense of, all the laws of physics on which their moon journey depended. Does the human brain construct spaceships and the human mind fashion unseen forces and spirits? What is the difference between brain and mind? What is intelligence and what is human consciousness? How did early people reach a stage of evolution that allowed them to make and understand pictures?”
― James David Lewis-Williams, Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art