Andrew

“All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”
― DH Lawrence

“When economic power desires to be left alone it uses the philosophy of laissez faire to discourage political restraint upon economic freedom. When it wants to make use of the police power of the state to subdue rebellions and discontent in the ranks of its helots, it justifies the use of political coercion and the resulting suppression of liberties by insisting that peace is more precious than freedom and that its only desire is social peace.”
― Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics

“Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and the naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which are provided by the myth-maker to keep ordinary person on course.”
― Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: Study in Ethics and Politics

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. The question of self-pity.”
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking