Category Archive

the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world
Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)

small talk is the grooming of the mind

Nothing scares members of Congress more than freedom-loving Americans
Michele Bachmann, who is also known for her intimations of the HUAC

We have become so paranoid for no reason
Michael Kimelman, reported by special agent David Makol, who prays that arrest warrants be issued…and that they be imprisoned or bailed as the case may be

The graveyard of finance contains those who were right too soon.
Martin Wolf on Andrew Smithers’ new book and the vicissitudes of imperfectly efficient markets

To be a monster is to be an omen

—Stephen Asma, On Monsters, remarking on the “living billboards for God’s sublime creativity and awe-inspiring authority”

we have no systematic process for addressing these problems
Linton Wells II, former principal deputy assistant defense secretary for networks and information integrity

It inspires the reader to look beyond the obvious and into the depths of what may have otherwise seemed familiar and understandable.
Review from the Deccan Herald of Mridula Koshy’s collection of fiction, If it is Sweet

If you’re going to shoot the king, you better shoot to kill.

—Bradley Bennett, a partner at Baker Botts in Washington, on the indictment of Raj Rajaratnam. “If they’re going to take on a billionaire, they need to have the strongest possible cases. The defendant’s own words are the strongest possible evidence.”

half the wrong conclusions at which mankind arrive are reached by the abuse of metaphors.

–Lord Palmerston in his letters to Lord Granville and his brother. Anthony Trollope would call these, in 1882, “sententious morsels of didactic wisdom, which would not have been put there in the hurry of private correspondence unless they had been intended for other eyes.”