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“Most young men, particularly attractive ones, have sexual relations with their own kind. I suppose this is news to those who believe in the two teams: straight, which is good and unalterable; queer, which is bad and unalterable unless it proves to be only a Preference, which must then, somehow, be reversed, if necessary by force.”
― Palimpsest
― Palimpsest
“When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such injury that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.”
―
―
“The discipline imposed on citizens by the bourgeois state makes them into subjects, people who delude themselves that they exert an influence on the course of events.”
― The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935
― The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935
“It is infinitely harder to ask questions in such a way that the audience is led not to the answers (the province of the demagogue) but to new perceptions.”
― The Best Man
― The Best Man
“Sleep, like other earthly blessings, is niggard of its favours when most courted.”
― The Abbot
― The Abbot
Goodreads Librarians Group
— 326802 members
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Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
Japanese Literature
— 5643 members
— last activity 17 hours, 46 min ago
A group for people who enjoy literature written by Japanese authors, the arts, culture, and history of Japan. May 2026: Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawa ...more
Classics and the Western Canon
— 4961 members
— last activity 8 hours, 23 min ago
This is a group to read and discuss those books generally referred to as “the classics” or “the Western canon.” Books which have shaped Western though ...more
Marxism
— 1114 members
— last activity May 18, 2026 04:43PM
Reading works by and about Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels.
Al’s 2025 Year in Books
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