Sign in with Facebook
My belief is, either you understand things or you understand people. Nobody can do both.
“A city for sale and doomed to speedy destruction if it finds a purchaser.”51”
― The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
― The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
“Aristotle said that only two living entities are capable of complete solitude and complete separateness: God and beast. Because of this the most acute form of suffering for human beings is loneliness. The isolated individual can never be adequately human. And many of war’s most fervent adherents are those atomized individuals who, before the war came, were profoundly alone and unloved. They found fulfillment in war, perhaps because it was the closest they came to love. If we do not acknowledge such an attraction, which is, in some ways, so akin to love, we can never combat it.”
― War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
― War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
“I was with young Islamic militants in a Cairo slum a few weeks after the war. They no longer attended the state school because their families did not have the money to hire teachers to tutor them. The teachers, desperate for a decent income, would not let students pass unless they paid. These militants spent their days at the mosque. They saw the Persian Gulf War for what it was, a use of force by a country that consumed 25 percent of the world’s petrol to protect its access to cheap oil. The message that was sent to them was this: We have everything and if you try to take it away from us we will kill you. It was not a message I could dispute.”
― War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
― War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
“We are silent when we see that all the money of all the nations has come into the hands of a few men; which we seem to tolerate and to permit with the more equanimity, because none of these robbers conceals what he is doing. CICERO”
― The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
― The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
“In the midst of slaughter the only choice is often between hate and lust. Human beings become objects, objects to extinguish or to provide carnal gratification. The widespread casual and frenetic sex in wartime often crosses the line into perversion and violence. It exposes the vast moral void. When life becomes worth nothing, when one is not sure of survival, when a society is ruled by fear, there often seems only death or fleeting, carnal pleasure. This is why Lady Ann in Shakespeare’s Richard III goes to Richard’s bed. She sleeps with Richard because her moral universe has been destroyed. This kind of love is the product of the impersonal violence of war.”
― War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
― War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
Paul’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Paul’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
5,171 books
|
377 friends
668 books
|
47 friends
161 books
|
38 friends
4 books
|
24 friends
129 books
|
41 friends
0 books
|
11 friends
23 books
|
37 friends
1 book
|
13 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Paul
Lists liked by Paul
