Emily Maxson

“The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphs even over the present quickening in the general pace of things:”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Because everybody is doing it.” That’s the same logic that got fifty million Nickelback albums sold. People who post twenty times a day are kidding themselves when they pretend they can do long-form thought while also being interrupted constantly to let people know they’re thinking. Social media isn’t free; it always costs you something. I’ve decided to bomb Snapchat.”
― Jon Acuff, Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done

“There is a real freedom of speech on a job site, which reverberates outward and sustains a wider liberality. You can tell dirty jokes. Where there is real work being done, the order of things isn’t quite so fragile. Not surprisingly, it is the office rather than the job site that has seen the advent of speech codes, diversity workshops, and other forms of higher regulation. Some might attribute this to the greater mixing of the sexes in the office, but I believe a more basic reason is that when there is no concrete task that rules the job—an autonomous good that is visible to all—then there is no secure basis for social relations. Maintaining consensus and preempting conflict become the focus of management, and as a result everyone feels they have to walk on eggshells. Where no appeal to a carpenter’s level is possible, sensitivity training becomes necessary.34”
― Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work

“The Rubicon, we know, was a very insignificant stream to look at; its significance lay entirely in certain invisible conditions.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch