Adam B

“A sort of protection racket arose around the firefighters. After all, it was far better if the tobi sacrificed a neighbor’s house to the firebreak rather than your own. Naturally, the Edo firemen became a tough lot—drinking, brawling, and covered in tattoos. Indeed, the distinctive tattoos that mark the Yakuza, today’s Japanese gangsters, are a relic of the Edo fire brigades.”
― Jeffrey Lewis, The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States

“Overcome by remorse at the part he had played in the downfall of the Girondins, Desmoulins had burst into tears when they were executed. He had since infuriated Robespierre by declaring in an obvious reference to him, ‘Love of country cannot exist when there is neither pity nor love for one’s fellow countrymen but only a soul dried up and withered by self-adulation.”
― Christopher Hibbert, The French Revolution

“Traditional Japanese homes were built of wood and paper, and they were packed close together. Great fires ripped through the city on a regular basis—so often that people began to call the conflagrations edo no hana (“the flowers of Edo”). The cultural difference between firefighters in other parts of the world and the tobi (firefighters) of Edo can be explained by the simple fact that the latter did not fight fires with water; they had no water trucks or water pumps, just a few buckets and ladders. The primary method of controlling fires at the time was to knock down houses to make a firebreak, which allowed the fire to burn itself out without spreading. Thus, the fire brigades weren’t there to fight the fire but to fight any homeowner who might—understandably—resist seeing his home demolished.”
― Jeffrey Lewis, The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States

“Elite diplomats have explained that their goal at a bargaining table isn’t seizing victory, but rather convincing the other side to become collaborators in uncovering new solutions that no one thought of before. Negotiation, among its top practitioners, isn’t a battle. It’s an act of creativity.”
― Charles Duhigg, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection