Helio Paiva Neto

“When we look, for example, at the Parthenon for the first time, we look at it already knowing that generations of architects chose precisely that style of building for the museums, town-halls, and banks of most of our major cities.”
― Mary Beard, Classics: A Very Short Introduction

“Years after Chávez’s presidential victory, Rafael Caldera explained his mistakes simply: “Nobody thought that Mr. Chávez had even the remotest chance of becoming president.” And merely a day after Hitler became chancellor, a prominent conservative who aided him admitted, “I have just committed the greatest stupidity of my life; I have allied myself with the greatest demagogue in world history.”
― Steven Levitsky, How Democracies Die

“The Open Society of Athens In democratic Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries BC, Greek civilization reached the apex of creativity. Perhaps alone among the Greek communities studied in this book, the classical Athenians demonstrated their ample endowment with every one of the ten characteristics that defined the ancient Greek mind-set. They were superb sailors, insatiably curious, and unusually suspicious of individuals with any kind of power. They were deeply competitive, masters of the spoken word, enjoyed laughing so much that they institutionalized comic theater, and were addicted to pleasurable pastimes. Yet the feature of the Athenian character that underlies every aspect of their collective achievement is undoubtedly their openness—to innovation, to adopting ideas from outside, and to self-expression.”
― Edith Hall, Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

“É difícil contar a história do governo Bolsonaro sem antes alertar o leitor: há uma mudança de escala nos desastres do país desde que a extrema direita venceu em 2018. Apenas colocá-los lado a lado com os erros e crimes dos governos anteriores — inclusive os petistas — dá a impressão de que são de dimensões comparáveis. Não são. Entre 2018 e 2022, o Brasil piorou muito.”
― Celso Rocha de Barros, PT, uma história