#pa

Rarely in modern times has there been such a revolution in commercial sentiment as occurred in 2008, or such a display in government and business of panic and helplessness. ↗

— James Buchan

#business #commercial #display #government #helplessness

There are signs that the age of petroleum has passed its zenith. Adjusted for inflation, a barrel of crude oil now sells for three times its long-run average. The large western oil companies, which cartellised the industry for much of the 20th century, are now selling more oil than they find, and are thus in the throes of liquidation. ↗

— James Buchan

#adjusted #age #average #barrel #century

We read too much Shakespeare at school, and view our parliamentary politics as dynastic drama, in which an impatient crown prince frets at his long subordination and begins to scheme for the throne he knows he merits, was promised and has earned. ↗

— James Buchan

#crown #drama #earned #frets #his

It puzzled me that other people hadn't found out, too. God was gone. We were younger. We had reached past him. Why couldn't they see it? It still puzzles me. ↗

— Frances Farmer

#god #gone #had #hadn #him

We, who are the living, possess the past. Tomorrow is for our martyrs. ↗

— James L. Farmer, Jr.

#martyrs #our #past #possess #tomorrow

When William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey of his English realm at Gloucester in 1085, the result was a work so thorough, fair, dispassionate, and wide-ranging that it seemed to the succeeding generations to have come from another world. ↗

— James Buchan

#come #commissioned #conqueror #dispassionate #english

Where consumption is both conspicuous and competitive, humanity will never run out of new wishes. All the while, industry creates new desires that are marketed, in the great fashion paradox, as both novelty and need. ↗

— James Buchan

#competitive #conspicuous #consumption #creates #desires

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. ↗

— John Buchan

#barbarism #bring #civilization #division #earth

Saying the Washington Post is just a newspaper is like saying Rasputin was just a country priest. ↗

— Pat Buchanan

#just #like #newspaper #post #priest

Chinese are wise in comprehending without many words what is inevitable and inescapable and therefore only to be borne. ↗

— Pearl S. Buck

#chinese #comprehending #inescapable #inevitable #many