Francis

“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”
― Adam Smith

“These days, there are angry ghosts all around us, dead from wars, sickness, starvation--and nobody cares. So you say you're under a curse? Well, so what? So's the whole damned world.”
― Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke Film Comic, Vol. 1

“if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“All conservative ideologies justify existing inequities as the natural order of things, inevitable outcomes of human nature. If the very rich are naturally so much more capable than the rest of us, why must they be provided with so many artificial privileges under the law, so many bailouts, subsidies and other special considerations - at our expense? Their "naturally superior talents" include unprincipled and illegal subterfuge such as price-fixing, stock manipulation, insider training, fraud, tax evasion, the legal enforcement of unfair competition, ecological spoliation, harmful products and unsafe work conditions. One might expect naturally superior people not to act in such rapacious and venal ways. Differences in talent and capacity as might exist between individuals do not excuse the crimes and injustices that are endemic to the corporate business system.”
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism