“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.” – Edmond Dantes (2002 adaptation)

“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. To break off that point is to avert the danger. The common system of representation perpetuates the danger. Unequal electorates afford no security to majorities. Equal electorates give none to minorities.” – Lord Acton, 1878

“When the mind is in a state of uncertainty the smallest impulse directs it to either side.” – Terrence

“Whatever I did, I have proof I didn’t do it.” – White Collar

“A country does not choose its banking system: rather it gets a banking system consistent with the institutions that govern its distribution of political power.” – Fragile by Design

“We die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.”
T.S. Eliot

“Terror consists mostly of useless cruelties perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves.” – Friedrich Engels

“Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.” – James Russell Lowell

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is a geographical expression.” – Otto von Bismark

“An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Freedom, like any other virtue, does not exist in a vacuum. It must be worked and practiced to exist at all. And like any other virtue, it imposes upon those who would have it the unpleasant tasks of discipline and sacrifice. A materialistic people do not learn these tasks by reading posters or listening to pep talks, any more than you can learn to play the violin by the same methods.” – Ralph Austin Bard

“As is made clear in the introduction, the author makes no attempt to expound any grand theory or “overarching theme” for contemporary European history, aiming to avoid narrative fallacies by plainly retelling the entire scope of European history in that period, to let what themes do exist become self-apparent.”

“La crise de la finance globalisée a été lourde de conséquences pour les États des pays développés. Afin d’éviter un effondrement de l’activité, ils ont accepté, à la fin des années 2000, de laisser leurs déficits budgétaires se creuser. Ce faisant, ils ont aussi jeté les germes d’une autre crise, celle des dettes souveraines.”

“Pourquoi les “décideurs” français sont-ils incapables, depuis trente ans, d’élaborer une politique économique cohérente ? Et savent-ils jusqu’où, à ce jeu dangereux, ils peuvent aller trop loin?”