Matt M
@dsaint
Matt M
All you ever were was a little bit of the universe, thinking to itself. Very specific; this bit, here, right now.
Surface Detail Quotes by Iain M. Banks
Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail, describing Auppi’s death. The quintessential materialist philosophy of The Culture summed up.
Our north star for this magazine is something I like to call Chiang’s Law, after the science fiction author Ted Chiang. This law can be stated compactly as: science fiction is about strange rules, while fantasy is about special people.
But you must continue to miss me and to think that you do not get on as well without me as you do with.
May 14, 1896 Thursday | Twain's Geography
May 14, 1896 - Livy Clemens writing from Durban to Sam Clemens in Port Elizabeth on his world lecture tour.
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (25 Jul 1902-1983
My great deeds speak for themselves. I vetoed the Reconstruction acts; I vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau; I vetoed civil liberty; I vetoed Stanton; I vetoed everything & everybody that the malignant Northern hordes approved; I hugged traitors to my bosom; I pardoned them by regiments & brigades... I smiled upon the Ku-Klux, I delivered the Union men... See more
Review: Ron Chernow's “Mark Twain” Biography
Mark Twain in a letter that was killed by New York Tribune editors.
Frank kings had rule over the other free men through detaining a magical power called Mund. That’s one point : Roman Emperors at least in the early times got power through law (though Augustus was divinised). Franks got theirs through intangible magic ; blood here is naturally important whereas adoption there was enough legally.
r/AskHistorians - Reddit
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
-Frédéric Bastiat, economist and writer (30 Jun 1801-1850)
From June 30, 2025 A.Word.A.Day--malison
My taste often deviates from many. I am not a willing contrarian. I’m just kind of weird. I possess no real frustration over this because art is something subjective, but it scares me. It scares me that I’m missing something, that everyone else is on a wavelength that I can’t harmonize with, that for all the books I have in me, none of them will... See more
An Alien on the Hunt for the Ineffable Sauce of Good Writing
bool is_leap_year_fast(uint32_t y) {
return ((y * 1073750999) & 3221352463) <= 126976;
}
return ((y * 1073750999) & 3221352463) <= 126976;
}