“Friendship is not born in conditions of need or trouble. Literary fairy tales tell of ‘difficult’ conditions which are an essential element in forming any friendship, but such conditions are simply not difficult enough. If tragedy and need brought people together and gave birth to their friendship, then the need was not extreme and the tragedy not great. Tragedy is not deep and sharp if it can be shared with friends. Only real need can determine one’s spiritual and physical strength and set the limits of one’s physical endurance and moral courage.”
― Kolyma Tales
― Kolyma Tales
“Certainly. In other words, no one is compelling a person to work at a job he doesn’t like or remain in a country against his will. He actually wants to do the very things he dislikes simply because the alternative is considered worse and he must choose something to do among the various things in his environment, or else commit suicide. ”
― Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times
― Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times
“It has been frequently said that many of the world’s greatest inventions were due to accident. In a sense this is true. But the accident was prepared for by previous hard thinking. It would never have occurred had not this thinking taken place.”
― Thinking as a Science
― Thinking as a Science
“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Karl’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Karl’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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