Abby

“Over years of war it had been turned upside down, the constitution trampled, appointments made on whim and against the law.”
― Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra

“It was in Alexandria that the circumference of the earth was first measured, the sun fixed at the center of the solar system, the workings of the brain and the pulse illuminated, the foundations of anatomy and physiology established, the definitive editions of Homer produced. It was in Alexandria that Euclid had codified geometry. If all the wisdoms of the ancient world could be said to have been collected in one place, that place was Alexandria. Cleopatra was its direct beneficiary. She knew that the moon had an effect on tides, that the Earth was spherical. She knew of the existence of the equator, the value of pi, the latitude of Marseilles, the behavior of linear perspective, the utility of a lightning conductor. She knew that one could sail from Spain to India, a voyage that was not to be made for another 1,500 years, though she herself would consider making it, in reverse.”
― Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra

“In Stalin’s paranoid police state, the safest way to ensure survival was to denounce someone else.”
― Ben Macintyre, The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

“The Senate appeared increasingly irrelevant. Some groused that they lived in a monarchy masquerading as a republic.”
― Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra