John Brunetti

“This paradox is resolved when we recognize that advances since 1970 have tended to be channeled into a narrow sphere of human activity having to do with entertainment, communications, and the collection and processing of information. For the rest of what humans care about—food, clothing, shelter, transportation, health, and working conditions both inside and outside the home—progress slowed down after 1970, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our”
― Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War

“For much of the Communist era, scholars tended to look back on Sun as one more unsuccessful, reform-minded leader, and his Three People’s Principles as just another of modern China’s many dead-end political experiments. As one biographer wrote: “If Sun Yat-sen had one consistent talent, it was for failure.”
― Orville Schell, Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century

“For a man who was to exhibit such acute political sharpness later in his career, Napoleon completely misread the revolution's opening stages. 'I repeat what I have said to you,' he wrote to Joseph on July 22, a week after the fall of the Bastille, 'calm will return. In a month, there will no longer be a question of anything. So, if you send me 300 livres [7,500 francs] I will go to Paris to terminate our business.”
― Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life

“I think the greatest difference between China and the West, which can never be made up, is that the Chinese are fond of antiquity, but neglect the present [whereas] Westerners are struggling in the present in order to supersede the past.”
― Orville Schell, Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century