Bickety Bam

“The twenty-first century has everything to gain from a Montaignean sense of life, and, in its most troubled moments so far, it has been sorely in need of a Montaignean politics. It could use his sense of moderation, his love of sociability and courtesy, his suspension of judgment, and his subtle understanding of the psychological mechanisms involved in confrontation and conflict. It needs his conviction that no vision of heaven, no imagined Apocalypse, and no perfectionist fantasy can ever outweigh the tiniest of selves in the real world. It is unthinkable to Montaigne that one could ever “gratify heaven and nature by committing massacre and homicide, a belief universally embraced in all religions.”
― Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

“I AM A BETTER DRIVER after a few drinks, more focused.”
― Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

“According to a UN report from 2014 surveying 185 countries and territories, only two did not guarantee any paid maternity leave; Papua New Guinea and the United States.”
― Anu Partanen, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

“The society of the illustrious dead can be enjoyed by me at leisure here; and when I choose to converse with sages, statesmen, or great poets, I have but to turn to my bookshelves, and my company is better than any that your palaces can afford with all their crowd of clients and flatterers.”
― Will Durant, The Renaissance