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“The economically uneducated tend to view wealth as a zero sum game by which one can only be wealthy from taking from someone else's and one is poor since someone took theirs'. Thus, it follows that the richer region in the world, Europe is rich since it exploited the poorest, Africa. They fail to understand that immense poverty is the natural state of man. In reality, Europe is rich and Africa is not since geographic and historical factors incentivized Europe to create institutions that created wealth, which never occured in Africa. Africa and Europe are rich and poor for reasons that have little to do with the other.”
― Anonymous

“What was civilization ever, really, but the attempt by man to talk himself into being good? Only good, mind you. The rest had to be shoved somewhere out of sight, under the rug. Which History indeed did, at times politely, at times police-ly, and yet something was always sticking out, breaking loose, overthrowing.”
― Stanisław Lem, The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy

“There, at her console, he dialed 594: pleased acknowledgement of husband's superior wisdom in all matters”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine - the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution.”
― E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops