

“The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance. Once humans realised how little they knew about the world, they suddenly had a very good reason to seek new knowledge, which opened up the scientific road to progress.”
― Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
― Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

“But I need solitude--which is to say, recovery, return to myself, the breath of a free, light, playful air.”
― On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo
― On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo

“After having struggled madly to solve all problems, after having suffered on the heights of despair, in the supreme hour of revelation, you will find that the only answer, the only reality, is silence.”
― On the Heights of Despair
― On the Heights of Despair

“Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism. Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, physically healthy, and not bankrupted in middle age by the illness of a spouse. Consider the biography of any “self-made” man, and you will find that his success was entirely dependent on background conditions that he did not make and of which he was merely the beneficiary. There is not a person on earth who chose his genome, or the country of his birth, or the political and economic conditions that prevailed at moments crucial to his progress. And yet, living in America, one gets the distinct sense that if certain conservatives were asked why they weren’t born with club feet or orphaned before the age of five, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments.”
― Free Will
― Free Will

“That's life for you," said McDunn. "Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving some thing more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can't hurt you no more.”
― The Fog Horn
― The Fog Horn
Ahmed’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Ahmed’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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