#access

It is one of the unexpected disasters of the modern age that our new unparalleled access to information has come at the price of our capacity to concentrate on anything much. The deep, immersive thinking which produced many of civilization's most important achievements has come under unprecedented assault. We are almost never far from a machine that guarantees us a mesmerizing and libidinous escape from reality. The feelings and thoughts which we have omitted to experience while looking at our screens are left to find their revenge in involuntary twitches and our ever-decreasing ability to fall asleep when we should. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#achievements #concentration #electronics #information #reality

Caroline had felt more comfortable thinking of beauty as something separate from her, like a scarf or a coat you could check before going in to a show. She wondered now, however, if she had treated more things as a part of herself rather than an accessory, perhaps everything would have turned out differently. ↗

— Erica Bauermeister

#beauty #self #beauty

And not just the right thing; it’s profoundly the right thing to do, because the one argument for accessibility that doesn’t get made nearly often enough is how extraordinarily better it makes some people’s lives. How many opportunities do we have to dramatically improve people’s lives just by doing our job a little better? ↗

— Steve Krug

#design #ethics #design

People in Medicaid ought to have access to the same insurance as the rest of the population. If they are segregated, it will be a poor plan for poor people. ↗

— John Goodman

#insurance #medicaid #ought #people #plan

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. ↗

— Charles William Eliot

#books #constant #counselors #friends #most

After all, I have spent the better part of my adult life insisting that government be open... that government be accessible... and that government be held accountable to people who voted us into office. ↗

— Roy Barnes

#accountable #adult #adult life #after #better

And this week, I am proposing legislation to strengthen our Open Records laws to make public access to our public records surer, faster, and more comprehensive. ↗

— Roy Barnes

#am #comprehensive #faster #i #i am

I think that's most unfortunate about our Democratic system, that you're confining it to people who are either very wealthy in their own right or have capacity to gain access to large amounts of money. ↗

— Birch Bayh

#access #capacity #confining #democratic #democratic system

Mostly it was Mad magazine. And I did read a lot of - I had a subscription when I was little, but I also had access to some old collections, the little paperbacks of the really good stuff. ↗

— Alison Bechdel

#also #collections #did #good #had

If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles. ↗

— Antony Beevor

#actually #blocking #capture #city #defenders