Samuel Johnson, Capture of Louisbourg, Idler 20, September 25, 1750
"The gates of Hell are terrible to behold, are they not? The lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making."
E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World
"The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria."
Frank Herbert, The God Emperor of Dune, 1981
“Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them — and then, the opportunity to choose.”
C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, 1959
"The illusions of extremists, of both the right and the left, are dangerous things, for the very reason that they often incline themselves to sacrifice the individual, and even surprisingly large groups of individuals and segments of society, for the 'greater good' of their illusions. And no people, no organization of people, and no nation is immune or exceptional to this extremity. Evil is a choice, a long, gradual succession of choices. And the madness never sleeps, always looking for souls to devour."
Jesse, A Cruel Deception, 28 October 2022
"It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one— the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
"How are the mighty fallen, and their weapons of war destroyed."
2 Samuel 1:27
They lie, and call it statecraft. They betray their nation, and call it practical. They abandon virtue to greed, and call it rational. They foster corruption, and call it necessity. They murder innocents, and call it peace.
And when they meet their God He will say, 'Depart from me. I do not know you, workers of lawlessness.'
Stocks were wobbling around again, stick save into the close.
Gold and silver were marching in place.
The Dollar is down a bit.
So is the VIX.
The FOMC decision on Wednesday and Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday may move the markets.
What are we becoming.
Have a pleasant evening.
