Michal

“perennial truths of financial history. Sooner or later every bubble bursts. Sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers. Sooner or later greed turns to fear.”
― Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

“Ludzie o przeroście zmysłu architektonicznego, ludzie lubujący się w jasności organizacyjnej, skłonni są wierzyć, że stosunki polityczne świata są regulowane przez jakąś wszechpotężną organizację, niczym przez wszechmocne ziemskie bóstwo, które przewiduje i kształtuje każde wydarzenie polityczne. Ludzie ci nie zdają sobie sprawy, że każdy czyn, każdy wypadek polityczny mieści w sobie atomy rzeczy wielkich i atomy rzeczy małych, małostkowych, przypadkowych.”
― Stanisław Mackiewicz, Historia Polski od 11 listopada 1918 do 17 września 1939

“You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in these same houses.
You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.”
― C.P. Cavafy

“Duke Leszek the White explained in a long letter to the Pope that neither he nor any self-respecting Polish knight could be induced to go to the Holy Land, where, they had been informed, there was no wine, mead, or even beer to be had.”
― Adam Zamoyski, Poland: A History