Quotes
From The Road by Cormac McCarthy:
On the outskirts of the city they came to a supermarket. A few old cars in the trashstrewn parking lot. They left the cart in the lot and walked the littered aisles. In the produce section in the bottom of the bins they found a few ancient runner beans and what looked to have once been apricots, long dried to wrinkled effigies of themselves. They boy followed behind. They pushed out through the rear door. In the alleyway behind the store a few shopping carts all badly rusted. They went back through the store again looking for another cart but there were none. By the door were two softdrink machines that had been tilted over into the floor and opened with a prybar. Coins everywhere in the ash. He sat and ran his hand around in the works of the gutted machines and in the second one it closed over a cold metal cylinder. He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca Cola.
What is it, Papa?
It’s a treat. For you.
Here. Sit down.
He slipped the boy’s knapsack straps loose and set the pack on the floor behind him and he put his thumbnail under the aluminum clip on the top of the can and opened it. He leaned his nose to the slight fizz coming from the can and then handed it to the boy. Go ahead, he said.
They boy took the can. It’s bubbly, he said.
Go ahead.
He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It’s really good, he said.
Yes. It is.
You have some, Papa.
I want you to drink it.
You have some.
He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let’s just sit here.
It’s because I wont ever get to drink another one, isnt it?
Ever’s a long time.
Okay, the boy said.
From the introduction of The Heart of Power by David Blumenthal and James A. Morone:
Tuberculosis tormented the Nixons. When Richard was ten, doctors found a shadow on his lungs and told him to lay off sports while they watched for other symptoms. Then his brother Arthur developed a fever and began to waste away. Doctors, tests, and treatments did not help. Just before dying, the boy drifted back into consciousness and recited a little prayer: “If I should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.” The boys’ touch, abusive father broke down and wept — but not Richard, then twelve years old. He just sat in a big armchair and stared into space, silent and dry-eyed. Two years later, the disease struck still another brother: Harold, the family favorite. After private sanitariums had drained the family savings, the boys’ mother moved to Arizona with Harold, hoping the dry climate would save him. To pay the rent, she cared for other boys dying of the disease. Memories of hard times and harsh treatment, illness and loss, all stuck to Richard Nixon. They touched the way he thought about politics, bent his lonely personality, and came blurting out when he faced difficulty. In his weepy White House farewell, just before boarding a helicopter and flying away in disgrace, Nixon described his mother, exiled in Arizona and watched the boys in her care die, one after another, while she struggled — helplessly, vainly — to save her son.
From the dedication of The Precipice by Toby Ord:
To the hundred billion people before us, who fashioned our civilization; To the seven billion now alive, whose actions may determine its fate; To the trillions to come, whose existence lies in the balance.
From the ending of Knowledge, Reality, and Value by Michael Huemer:
All this explains why, if you agree with the arguments of this chapter, you should not only refrain from buying factory farm products yourself. You should also exert social pressure on other people around you. E.g., express serious disapproval whenever your friends buy products from factory farms. If you meet someone for a meal, you should insist on going to a vegetarian restaurant.
By the way, if you do this, you can expect other people to act resentful, and indignant, and often to insult you. This is because, again, they are horrible. Given their horribleness, their main thought when someone points out their immorality is to get angry at the other person for making them feel sightly uncomfortable. They won’t blame themselves for being immoral; they’ll blame you for making them aware of it. It’s sort of like how a serial murderer would get mad at you for being “preachy”. Perhaps the murderer would then refuse to be your friend any more. If so, good riddance.
In fact, most of my readers are probably regular meat-eaters, which means that I’ve probably just alienated you by calling you immoral. If you’re mad about that, feel free to stop reading — oh wait, you’re already at the end of the book anyway.