Quote from my reading: Adolf Hitler

“The man with the Charlie Chaplin moustache, who had been a down-and-out tramp in Vienna in his youth, an unknown soldier of World War I, a derelict in Munich in the first grim postwar days, the somewhat comical leader of the Beer Hall Putsch, this spellbinder who was not even German but Austrian, and who was only forty-three years old, had just been administered the oath as Chancellor of the German Reich.”

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, p. 4.

Quote from my reading: Future of the Planet Earth

“In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come…will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.

Conclusion to the Foreword of William L Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. xii.

Quote from my reading: Spelling

“This movement towards systematizing language obviously called for spelling rules. And this forced the question, Would French have phonetic or etymological spelling? In some modern languages today, such as Spanish and Arabic, spellings are phonetic. English and French are both notable for having maintained etymological spellings (that is, based on historic forms of the words)…. In some cases spellings conform to sounds; in others they reflect the history of the word…. English speakers like to see the history of the word in its spelling. This is why French spellings, like English spellings, make little sense.”

The Story of French, Nadeau and Barlow, p. 55.

Quote from my reading: Speed and Travel in the American West

“The same passion for speed that had made western travelers risk fire and brimstone to get there first by steamboat—and that induced pony express riders to risk life and limb—also explained the early displacement of the steamboat by the railroad.”

The Americans, Volume 2: The National Experience, p. 102.

Quote from my reading: Settling the American West

“More than almost anything else, they valued the freedom to move, hoping in their movement to discover what they were looking for.”

The Americans, Volume 2: The National Experience. Daniel Boorstin, p. 95.

Quote from my reading: Crime and Punishment

“Crime was rare, for punishment was certain.” (Settling the West)

The Americans, Volume 2: The National Experience. Daniel Boorstin, p. 86.

Quote from my reading: Lawyers

“We needed no laws…until the lawyers came.” (Settling the West)

The Americans. Volume 2: The National Experience. Daniel Boorstin, p. 84.

Quote from my reading: The Universe

“…faith in a universe not measured by our fears….”

Yankee from Olympus, Catherine Drinker Bowen, p. 353.