Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation.

-John Updike

Artifice | Celebrity | Fame | Sanity

if anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.

-Marcus Aurelius

History is a slaughter bench, upon which the happiness of nations, the wisdom of states, and the virtues of individuals are sacrificed

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel “Paraphrased”

Science hasn’t yet figured out how to solve obesity.

-USA Today 08/2022

A Hideous Hermaphroditical Character which has neither the Force and Firmness of a Man, Not the Gentleness and Sensibility of a Woman

-Written by Thomas Jefferson about John Adams who paid journalist James Thomson Callender to publish it

General Jackson’s mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers! She afterwards married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!

-The Cincinnati Gazette 1828 on General Jackson

To be turned out by the Pimp of the White House

-Congressman Kenneth Rayner on President Franklin Pierce

Bastard Brat of a Scotch Peddler

-John Adams on Alexander Hamilton

is a situation found in chess and other games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because they must make a move when they would prefer to pass and not move. The fact that the player is compelled to move means that their position will become significantly weaker.