Brendan

“Most people around the globe today are better off than our ancestors because citizens and workers in early industrial societies organized, challenged elite-dominated choices about technology and work conditions, and forced ways of sharing the gains from technical improvements more equitably.”
― Daron Acemoğlu, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

“Many of the laws are also quoted, expanded, and revised in the New Testament, for example in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) and in the “household codes” of some letters, such as Ephesians 5:22–6:9, Colossians 3:18–4:1, and 1 Peter 2:18–3:7. The household codes in particular also have parallels in Greek and Roman literature.”
― Michael Coogan, The Bible: What Everyone Needs to Know®

“The Boss is the perfect blend of Elvis and Dylan, come from New Jersey (America’s armpit) to save the seventies from further Mellotron arabesques and Minimoog, with a stars-and-stripes ass to die for snugly fitted jeans on the cover of Born in the U.S.A., the minstrel descending the Lincoln Memorial staircase to crown Obama, the knight in shining armor for the Super Bowl halftime show, the musical equivalent to fried chicken wings and the E pluribus unum motto engraved on the national crest.”
― Leonardo Colombati, Bruce Springsteen: Like a Killer in the Sun: Selected Lyrics 1972-2017

“On the one hand, Puritans hinted that God would reward the diligent and godly with prosperity. On the other hand, they cautioned that wealth must not be an end unto itself lest carnal temptations overwhelm the ultimate purpose of human life: preparation for salvation in the next world.”
― Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America