J.A. Gilmer

“The kings and priests of ancient Sumer wanted writing to be used by professional scribes to record numbers of sheep owed in taxes, not by the masses to write poetry and hatch plots.”
― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

“Even though my natural acts are good they have a tendency, when they are only natural, to concentrate my faculties on the man that I am not, the one I cannot be, the false self in me, the character that God does not know. This is because I am born in selfishness. I am born self-centered. And this is original sin.”
― Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

“To integrate contemplative practice into life requires more than becoming proficient in techniques of meditation. It entails the cultivation and refinement of a sensibility about the totality of your existence—from intimate moments of personal anguish to the endless suffering of the world. This sensibility encompasses a range of skills: mindfulness, curiosity, understanding, collectedness, compassion, equanimity, care.”
― Stephen Batchelor, The Art of Solitude

“The earliest preserved examples of the Etruscan and Roman alphabets are also inscriptions on drinking cups and wine containers.”
― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies