Decline of an empire

As one Ummayad chieftain responded to a question about the reasons of the decline of their empire: 

"Rather visiting what needed to be visited, we were more interested in the pleasure and enjoyment of life; we oppressed our people until they gave up and sought relief from us, [...] we trusted our ministers who favoured their own interests and kept secrets from us, and we unhurriedly rewarded our soldiers that we lost their obedience to our enemies."

On language, Max Weinreich

"A language is a dialect with an army and navy."

On nations

".. a decision to form – or re-form – a nation depends on a common view that it will be a better place to be for its people, because it will in its institutions and in its customs, in its actions and in the place it makes for itself in the world, more resemble them and how they would like to be seen."

More here.

Insanity

"That's what insanity is, when you do the same thing over and over again even though it really doesn't work."

Mindwalk (1999)

"See, we tend to think of subatomic  particles as some kind of small billiards balls or small grains of sand. But for physicists a particle has no independent existence. A particle is essentially a set of relations that reach outward to connect with other things.

What are those other  things, please?

They're interconnections of  yet other things which also turn out to be interconnections, and so on, and so on. In atomic physics we never  end up with any things at all. The essential nature of matter lies not in objects, but in interconnections."

"No one induced upon us the wisdom of the American indian tribes who made all their important decisions with the  seventh generation in mind. We were never taught to think about the future that way."

About credibility

There's always more than one side to a coin, it smells bad whenever only one side is shown. Whenever the same story is repeated over and over by different voices it means that somebody already analysed both sides and made their choice for their own benefit.

Greece should default and the rescue funds are bound to fail, idea defended by Martin Feldstein. But at the same time this can have a domino effect for Italy and Spain and a devaluation battle didn't help anyone in 1930.

"The only way the dollar is going to strengthen significantly is if the Federal Reserve begins to aggressively tighten monetary policy, which means raising interest rates, or if a major global economic catastrophe hits the economy, such as several EU countries entering into default at the same time."  citation

The endless repetition of history

"When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history." --Winston Spencer Churchill, May 2, 1935