Tina Lakinger

“But in truth, those of us fortunate enough to have lived all our lives in a mature democracy only think of elections because we take so much else for granted. Democracy is not just elections; it is a whole set of rules that limit what government can do.”
― Paul Collier, The Plundered Planet: Why We Must--and How We Can--Manage Nature for Global Prosperity

“One of the more interesting things I learned from my first job as a foundation inspector was that preparing a building site means carting the topsoil off to a landfill. Sometimes the fine topsoil was sold as fill for use in other projects. Completely paved, Silicon Valley won't feed anyone again for the foreseeable future.”
― David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations

“The main barrier between East and West today is that the white man is not willing to give up his superiority and the colored man is no longer willing to endure his inferiority.… The white man is a century behind the colored man. The white man is still thinking in terms of colonies and colonial government. The colored man knows that colonies and colonial-mindedness are anachronisms.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945