Jeff

“You have to jump around in time to get the facts right. Linear chronology makes for good popular storytelling, but it doesn’t always capture the deep causes that drive history. Some causes are proximate, in the moment. Some are echoes of distant shock waves, still reverberating a hundred—or a thousand—years later.”
― Steven Johnson, Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt

“An appalling double tragedy overshadowed the joy that should have welcomed Alice Lee Roosevelt's entrance to the world on February 12, 1884.”
― Stacy A. Cordery, Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker

“The beast in man had lifted its mask and the time of euphemistic niceties and rationalizations was over.”
― Annette Dumbach, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose

“One day during the siege, Grant was observed walking the outer line when he encountered a mule-team driver beating and cursing one of the mules. He ordered the man to stop. The animal’s abuser, seeing a man with a blouse and no sign of rank, turned and began to swear at him. Grant had the man arrested and brought to his headquarters. Only then did the mule driver realize whom he had insulted. The man was ordered to be tied up by his thumbs. When released, the contrite soldier apologized for his language, telling Grant he did not know to whom he was speaking. Grant explained that he had punished the soldier not because of what he’d said to his commanding general: “I could defend myself, but the mule could not.”
― Ronald C. White Jr., American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant