Not going gently over the hill . . .

Russian Ark, Alexander Sokurov, 2002

❤️

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

Tsuchiya Koitsu - "Evening at Ushigome" (1939)

William F. Buckley, Jr.

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Robert A. Heinlein

"Books only have two smells. The smell of a new book, which is good, and the smell of an old book, which is even better." - Ray Bradbury

J.R.R. Tolkien