#mer

That is what the Slave Trade was all about. Not death from poxes and musketry and whippings and malnutrition and melancholy and suicide: death itself. For before the white men came to Guinea to strip-mine field hands. ... black people did not die ... the decedent ... took up residence in an afterworld that was in many ways indistinguishable from his former estate. ↗

— David Bradley

#race #race-america #slave-trade #slavery #death

And strange were the tales of the pond in the meadow, And eager we listened with eyes opened wide To Those tales often told by poor Mary the widow, Who lived in a cottage the meadow beside. Play not, my dear boys, near the pond in the meadow, The mermaid is waiting to pull you beneath; Climb not for a bird’s nest, the bough it may sliver, And the mermaid will drag you to darkness and death. ↗

— J.R. Withers

#moon-stealers #science-fiction #death

It was a heavenly summer, the summer in which France fell and the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk. Leaves were never such an intense and iridescent green; sunlight glinted on flower-studded meadows as the Germans encircled the Maginot Line and overran not only France but Belgium and Holland. Birdsong filled the air in the lull between bursts of gunfire and accompanied the fleeing refugees who blocked the roads. It was as though the weather was preparing a glorious requiem for the death of Europe. ↗

— Eva Ibbotson

#summer #war #wwii #death

But Mather's smile faded as he thought of what other provisions the charter contained. What would the godly say when they learned that the electorate was no longer to be limited to members of the Covenant but broadened to include propertied members of every Christian sect this side of papistry? This was a revolutionary innovation, whose consequences would be incalculable. Hitherto the limitation of the privilege of voting to the elect had been the very corner-stone of theocracy. It had been a wise and human provision designed to keep the faithful in control even when, as had long ago become the case, they were heavily outnumbered by lesser men without the Covenant. God who had not designated the majority of men to salvation surely never intended for the damned to rule. Yet now, under the new charter, it very much looked as if they might. ↗

— Marion Lena Starkey

#democracy #suffrage #theocracy #design

You said, 'They’re harmless dreamers and they’re loved by the people.' 'What,' I asked you, 'is harmless about a dreamer, and what,' I asked you, 'is harmless about the love of the people? Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams. ↗

— Tennessee Williams

#revolution #dreams

Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream ↗

— William Shakespeare

#shakespeare #dreams

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our Democracy; Tonight is your answer. ↗

— Barack Obama

#dreams #politics #dreams

I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#dreamer #fyodor-dostoyevsky #memories #white-nights #dreams

Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock 'n' roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#darkness #freshness #girls #intimacy #movie-theatres

Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman. ↗

— Roman Payne

#classics #dreams #greek #heroism #homer