Brian Thomas

“On May 9, 1916, the British and French entered into a clandestine treaty on how they intended to carve up the region. The treaty was the Sykes-Picot, named for the negotiators. Always described as infamous, the treaty ignored both Jewish aspirations and Sharif Husain’s personal ambitions. And so Palestine became the ‘twice promised land.”
― Leon Uris, The Haj

“Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“The only happy people I know are people I don’t know well.” This observation is a one-sentence antidote to this obstacle to happiness. If all of us realized that the people with whom we negatively compare our happiness are plagued by pains and demons of which we know little or nothing, we would stop comparing our happiness with others’. Think of those people you know well, and you will realize the truth of Helen Telushkin’s comment. Most likely you know how much unhappiness everyone you know well has experienced. And even with regard to these people whom you know well, chances are that you do not know with what inner demons—emotional, psychological, economic, sexual, or related to alcohol or drugs—they have to struggle.”
― Dennis Prager, Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual

“Those who believe in the unconditional benefits of past experience should consider this pearl of wisdom allegedly voiced by a famous ship’s captain: But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident… of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. E. J. Smith, 1907, Captain, RMS Titanic Captain Smith’s ship sank in 1912 in what became the most talked-about shipwreck in history.*”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable