#w

A century ago, petroleum - what we call oil - was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water. ↗

— James Buchan

#almost #call #century #commodity #existence

Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the impartial reader. ↗

— James Buchan

#authors #cutting #disgust #effects #favourite

At the heart of banking is a suicidal strategy. Banks take money from the public or each other on call, skim it for their own reward and then lock the rest up in volatile, insecure and illiquid loans that at times they cannot redeem without public aid. ↗

— James Buchan

#banking #banks #call #cannot #each

The death clock is ticking slowly in our breast, and each drop of blood measures its time, and our life is a lingering fever. ↗

— Georg Buchner

#clock #death #drop #each #fever

The world is chaos. Nothingness is the yet-to-be-born god of the world. ↗

— Georg Buchner

#god #nothingness #world

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors. ↗

— James Buchan

#compound #devastated #disruption #foreign #foreign aid

Cause and effect, the riddle of all history, is a particular devil in financial history; and never more so than today, where entire classes of security are collapsing not on public exchanges and stock-tickers but because there are no markets to establish prices this side of nothing. ↗

— James Buchan

#cause #classes #collapsing #devil #effect

You never toot your own horn. ↗

— Zakk Wylde

#never #own #you #your

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice. ↗

— James Buchan

#contain #does #importance #information #like

Last chances in the Middle East have been two a dirham since the 1950s. Each year the enmities are more profound, the despots more bloodthirsty and clownish, the violence more extreme, and the conditions of ordinary existence more ghastly. ↗

— James Buchan

#chances #conditions #despots #each #east