Gulo

“The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the former. There’s far less competition. (Dwight Morrow)”
― Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

“Between the bark and the wood is the delicate undergarment of living tissue called cambium. This is disappointing when one comes to look for it, for all there is of it is a colorless, slimy substance that moistens the youngest layers of wood and bark, and forms the layer of separation between them. This cambium is the life of the tree. A hollow trunk seems scarcely a disability… But girdle its trunk, exposing a ring of the cambium to the air, and the tree dies. The vital connection of leaves and roots is destroyed by the girdling; nothing can save the tree’s life.”
― Julia Ellen Rogers, The Nature Library: Trees

“Every time I put another installment of Monzer’s story on the air, listeners asked how they could help. And I felt conflicted about it… Should Monzer, or Mohammed, have gotten cash from a concerned NPR listener just because I happened to tell their stories and not others? And if they shouldn’t have, then why exactly was I asking these guys to narrate their most traumatic experiences for the world to witness? Was this just vampirism, where people poured their pain into my microphone, and I walked away with a paycheck? It is a central tenet of journalism that one of the best ways to tell a bug story is by telling a small one. But I wondered whether zeroing in on an individual’s story actually was a way of clearing the path to real change. Perhaps I was just narrowing the aperture, cutting global upheaval into bite-sized morseld for our audience.”
― Ari Shapiro, The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening―A Poignant Journey Through Journalism, Global Connections, and Human Resilience in Today's World

“Jimmy Carter did not have the grace of John Kennedy, the congressional wizardry Lyndon Johnston, the strategic vision of Richard Nixon, the charm and clarity of purpose of Ronald Regan, the foreign policy experience of George H. W. Bush, the supreme political skills of Bill Clinton, the toughness of George W. Bush, or the eloquence of Barack Obama. But he brought to the oval office his own unique intellect, inquisitiveness, self discipline, political courage, and resilience in the face of setbacks. He disregarded the political costs of trying to make the nation and the world a better place in ways that transcended his presidency and often did not come to fruition until he left office. It is precisely because of his qualities that he was determined to confront so many difficult challenges and accomplished so much as he pressed ahead.”
― Stuart E. Eizenstat, President Carter: The White House Years