Sublime

It was all part of a way of doing things in the United States that, as I would gradually realize, forced you to be constantly on guard, constantly worried that whatever amount of money you had or earned would never be enough,

The noble has gone down on the social ladder, and the roturier has gone up; the one descends as the other rises. Every half century brings them nearer to each other, and they will very shortly meet.

La Virginie a joué un rôle de premier plan dans la révolution américaine. C’est là que se trouvent 40 % des esclaves du pays, mais c’est de là aussi que viennent la majeure partie des acteurs de la révolte qui a éclaté au nom de la liberté.

Florida drew the transient and rootless on the eternal promise of a second chance, with more than its share of scammers and con men. So who was to say the guy living next door wasn’t one of them? A subdivision like Carriage Pointe was Jane Jacobs’s vision of hell.

Determined to unshackle market forces from the heavy hand of the state and the millstone of “tax and spend,” the classes that led this bloc aimed to liberalize and globalize the capitalist economy. What that meant, in reality, was financialization: dismantling barriers to, and protections from, the free movement of capital; deregulating banking and

omnipresent heretical conspiracy to overthrow all property relations

He had to save the nation from its own moral failings because other men were unable to contain their sexual passions.

The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course à la mode.

Equal and independent people will satisfy their own desires with no obligation to others outside their narrow circle. The chance to be anything or anyone gives them the idea that they don’t owe anything to anyone. They grow indifferent to the common good and withdraw from others into the pursuit of personal happiness, especially wealth. Tocqueville