Cease your blasphemy

The death of his father was announced to one of the monks: ‘Cease your blasphemy,’ said he to the person that told him; ‘my father is immortal.’

Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History IV.23.51

When he arrived at Cambridge University he took 2,000 bottles of port with him

The prize for the rowdiest port drinker goes to a Shropshire squire called John Mytton who drank between four and six bottles of port a day. he was thought to have been permanently drunk for most of his adult life. He once set fire to his nightshirt in order to cure hiccups. When he arrived at Cambridge University he took 2,000 bottles of port with him. He left without any port or a degree. Briefly MP for Shrewsbury, he was more famous for his drunken exploits. Mytton's biographer, Charles James Apperley, wrote: "He once rode this bear into his drawing-room, in full hunting costume, The bear carried him very quietly for a time; but on being pricked by the spur he bit his rider through the calf of his leg." Mytton died aged 37, his enormous inheritance nearly spent (on port).

H. Jeffreys, Empire of Booze (2016), 44

Place a ladder, Acesius, and climb alone into heaven

When, therefore, the emperor further asked him, ‘For what reason then do you separate yourself from communion with the rest of the Church?’ he related what had taken place during the persecution under Decius; and referred to the rigidness of that austere canon which declares, that it is not right persons who after baptism have committed a sin, which the sacred Scriptures denominate ‘a sin unto death’ to be considered worthy of participation in the sacraments: that they should indeed be exhorted to repentance, but were not to expect remission from the priest, but from God, who is able and has authority to forgive sins. When Acesius had thus spoken, the emperor said to him, ‘Place a ladder, Acesius, and climb alone into heaven.'

Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History I.10

I’m not so selfish as to believe that my relative happiness, including, but not limited to, twenty-four-hour access to chili burgers, Blu-ray, and Aeron office chairs is worth generations of suffering

However, I’m not so selfish as to believe that my relative happiness, including, but not limited to, twenty-four-hour access to chili burgers, Blu-ray, and Aeron office chairs is worth generations of suffering. I seriously doubt that some slave ship ancestor, in those idle moments between being raped and beaten, was standing knee-deep in their own feces rationalizing that, in the end, the generations of murder, unbearable pain and suffering, mental anguish, and rampant disease will all be worth it because someday my great-great-great-great-grandson will have Wi-Fi, no matter how slow and intermittent the signal is.

P. Beatty, The Sellout (2015), 219

Walking is akin to begging in the streets

L.A. is about space, and here one’s self-worth comes from how one chooses to navigate that space. Walking is akin to begging in the streets. Taxicabs are for foreigners and prostitutes. Bicycles, skateboards, and Rollerblades are for health nuts and kids, people with nowhere to go. And all cars, from the luxury import to the classified-ad jalopy, are status symbols, because no matter how shoddy the upholstery, how bouncy the ride, how fucked-up the paint job, the car, any car, is better than riding the bus.

P. Beatty, The Sellout (2015), 117 

I think it comes from the innumeracy of our journalistic and intellectual culture

Why the gloom [about the modern world]? Partly it's the result of market forces in the punditry business, which favours the Cassandras over the Pollyannas. Partly it arises from human temperament: as David Hume observed: 'The humour of blaming the present, and admiring the past, is strongly rooted in human nature, and has an influence even on persons endowed with the profoundest judgement and most extensive learning.' But mainly, I think it comes from the innumeracy of our journalistic and intellectual culture.

S. Pinker, The better angels of our nature (2011), 356

Democracy came too early to America

The historian Peter Spierenburg has provocatively suggested that 'democracy came too early' to America. In Europe, first the state disarmed the people and claimed a monopoly on violence, then the people took over the apparatus of the state, in America, the people took over the state before it had forced them to lay down their arms.

S. Pinker, The better angels of our nature (2011), 118

Elsewhere, in support of this thesis (which I suspect is true) Pinker highlights the differential rates of violent crime by regions of the US, where the North East looks a lot like Europe and the West and South, less so.