Mathias Mueller

“An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty maneuvers, and ugly aspirations, and often can build up your defenses. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy. The fact that the activity and movements of a stupid creature are absolutely erratic and irrational not only makes defense problematic but it also makes any counterattack extremely difficult—like trying to shoot at an object that is capable of the most improbable and unimaginable movements.”
― Carlo M. Cipolla, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

“Auschwitz was a living nightmare, a place of unimaginable horrors. But I survived because I owed it to my friend Kurt to survive, to live another day so that I might see him again. Having even just one good friend means that the world takes on new meaning. One good friend can be your entire world.

This, more than the food we shared or the warm clothes or the medicine, was the most important thing. The best balm for the soul is friendship. And with that friendship, we could do the impossible.”
― Eddie Jaku

“We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.”
― Edith Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible

“But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw, was: my people had sold me and the white people had bought me. . . . It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed and glory. —Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"