Friday, November 27, 2015

What I've Been Reading

Generations of men establish a growing mastery over the earth, but they are destined to become fossils in its soil. 

The Lessons of History by Will Durant.

I cannot think of anyone else who can write the entire history of Sapiens in 100 pages; a prefect cocktail if read with Yuval Noah Harari's new book Sapiens.

"Nevertheless, know history shows little alteration in conduct of mankind. The Greeks of Plato's time behaved very much like French of modern centuries; and the Romans behaved like the English. Means and instrumentalities change; motives and ends remain the same: to act or rest, to acquire or give, to fight or retreat, to seek association or privacy, to mate or reject, to offer or resent parental care. Nor does human nature alter as between classes: by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them. Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed."

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