Joren

“Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“But now she couldn’t deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.”
― Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

“A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons?”
― Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

“Our goal over the next few chapters is to address the origin of complex structures—including, but not limited to, living creatures—in the context of the big picture. The universe is a set of quantum fields obeying equations that don’t even distinguish between past and future, much less embody any long-term goals. How in the world did something as organized as a human being ever come to be?”
― Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself