#po

We must powder our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#poverty #poverty

To seek "causes" of poverty in this way is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes. ↗

— Jane Jacobs

#prosperity #poverty

Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#terror #poverty

It is a good thing to know what it is to be poor, and a better thing if you can do it in company. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#poverty

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand. ↗

— Samuel Butler

#culture #cultured #enough #first #hand

I was taken to a villa to meet Sabri al-Banna, known as 'Abu Nidal' ('father of struggle'), who was at the time emerging as one of Yasser Arafat's main enemies. The meeting began inauspiciously when Abu Nidal asked me if I would like to be trained in one of his camps. No thanks, I explained. From this awkward beginning there was a further decline. I was then asked if I knew Said Hammami, the envoy of the PLO in London. I did in fact know him. He was a brave and decent man, who in a series of articles in the London Times had floated the first-ever trial balloon for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. 'Well tell him he is a traitor,' barked my host. 'And tell him we have only one way with those who betray us.' The rest of the interview passed as so many Middle Eastern interviews do: too many small cups of coffee served with too much fuss; too many unemployed heavies standing about with nothing to do and nobody to do it with; too much ugly furniture, too many too-bright electric lights; and much too much faux bonhomie. The only political fact I could winnow, from Abu Nidal's vainglorious claims to control X number of 'fighters' in Y number of countries, was that he admired the People's Republic of China for not recognizing the State of Israel. I forget how I got out of his office. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#arafat #china #interviews #iraq #israel

Sanctions make a substantial contribution to power based on privation, and they have never hurt a single despot in the whole history of their use. ↗

— Roger Scruton

#international-sanctions #iraq #iraq-sanctions #kim-jong-il #north-korea

All those who prefer peace to power, and happiness to glory should thank the colonized people for their civilizing mission. By liberating themselves, they made Europeans more modest, less racist, and more human. Let us hope that the process continues and that the Americans are obliged to follow the same course. When one’s own cause is unjust, defeat can be liberating. ↗

— Jean Bricmont

#foreign-policy #france #human-rights #iraq #kosovo-wa

It's probably best for me to work off some energy before I get you naked. I'm sure you'd like to be able to walk tomorrow. ↗

— Sylvia Day

#gideon-cross #energy

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. ↗

— Judith Lewis Herman

#post-traumatic-stress #psychotherapy #taboo #trauma #truth