The Barbarians Come Out At Night.

Machiavelli Says That If As A Ruler You Accept That Your Every Action Must Pass Moral Scrutiny, You Will Without Fail Be Defeated By An Opponent Who Submits To No Such Moral Test. To Hold On To Power, You Have Not Only To Master The Crafts Of Deception And Treachery But To Be Prepared To Use Them Where Necessary.

I Am Corrupted To The Bone With The Beauty Of This Forsaken World.

Erasmus Dramatizes A Well-established Political Position: That Of The Fool Who Claims License To Criticize All And Sundry Without Reprisal, Since His Madness Defines Him As Not Fully A Person And Therefore Not A Political Being With Political Desires And Ambitions. The Praise Of Folly, Therefore Sketches The Possibility Of A Position For The Critic Of The Scene Of Political Rivalry, A Position Not Simply Impartial Between The Rivals But Also, By Self-definition, Off The Stage Of Rivalry Altogether.

A Book Should Be An Axe To Chop Open The Frozen Sea Inside Us.

Deprived Of Human Intercourse, I Inevitably Overvalue The Imagination And Expect It To Make The Mundane Glow With An Aura Of Self-transcendence. Yet Why These Glorious Sunsets, I Ask Myself, If Nature Does Not Speak To Us With Tongues Of Fire.