"For four hundred years European civilization has dominated the world - for better or for worse. It is convenient, and flattering, for Americans to assume that this is all over; but it very rash to do so."

"Bacon makes almost any meal tolerable."

"In the South, you will get a lot of sugar — and by that we mean a lot of hugs and kisses. We don't air kiss in the South."

"This isn't a diet book. In fact, you may gain 30 pounds just reading it."

"I may be the only man in America who can qualify for workers' comp based on my cholesterol."

"I wish you all full plates, glasses, tables, and hearts."

"If you truly want to learn a place, eat the food of its people."

"My four Southern food groups are bourbon, salt, bacon and pie."

"The real choice is between obedience and expulsion. For this reason, there is a powerful tendency for people to want to believe that their thoughts and behavior at work are voluntary—the alternative, of perceiving the actual conflict, is simply too painful. Indeed, this struggle with conformity will be painful to the extent to which individuals are aware that it is real, to the extent to which they are aware of their own conflicting inner needs, thoughts and desires. A person will suffer more intensely the more he or she is strong and independent. Given the apparent hopelessness of resistance, there is a powerful and continuous incentive for individuals to become less aware of their own feelings, beliefs and needs. Indeed the only rational solution for an individual may often be to become dead inside, to become alienated from his or her feelings and desires."

"When modern men and women insist that they feel completely free in their work, they are in a sense telling the truth, for the triumph of conformity lies in the crushing of all resistance, all experience of conflict."

"Is it Chomsky’s intellectual competence which deserts him when he criticizes the powerful, or is it the willingness of Chomsky’s critics to perceive that competence which deserts them?"

"There is often no greater obstacle to freedom than the assumption that it has already been attained."

"On 2011 Norway attacks Since the massacre was consumed in 30 minutes, however, one cannot help but wonder why the murderer was not at all opposed by the group of people he was slaughtering. Let's reason. Five, six, seven, ten, fifteen people, all unarmed, are not able to defeat even a single enemy, if that man is using firearms. But 50 - and on the island there were ten times that number - if they throw themselves together at the enemy - some will be mown down for sure, but only a few, and those that would otherwise remain unscathed (say 30 or 40) have the possibility to tear him to pieces with their bare hands. [...] But it's amazing how, in certain circumstances, everyone is only looking to save himself, hoping to survive, instead of adopting the oldest (and most effective) tactic in the world: unity makes strength. [...] Apparently mankind doesn't have (or may have lost over the centuries) the habit and ability to fight for their community. Selfishness and egotism prevail. Man is no longer able to identify with others and to sacrifice himself for them, maybe convinced that others wouldn't sacrifice themselves for him."

"Macron's wife? His grandmother."

"In short: Readily available low-cost life insurance would be a threat to the industry, and whatever threatens the life insurance industry threatens America."

"The first life insurance societies where formed in England in the years between 1692 and 1720. In America, life insurance became available to the clergy through the Presbyterian Ministers Fund, founded in 1759(still in existence), and the Episcopal Corporation, founded ten years later (subsequently merged)."

"Life insurance is a commodity."

"The industry cannot long offer unneeded or overpriced insurance if people will not buy it."

"Rule of thumb: The more trimmings an insurance plan has and the harder someone is pitching it, the faster you should run."

"Hay fever suffers tend to be above average in intelligence,..."

"The first known life insurance contract was written in 1536 on the life of a British merchant, William Gybbons, for a term of one year. Gybbons died shortly before the policy was to expire, but the insurers refused the claim. They held that that Gybbons had indeed survived "twelve months" - twelve lunar months (of 28 days). The insurers were taken to court and ordered to pay."

"The larger the deductible you choose, the less insurance you are buying. Insurers want to sell insurance."

"The first American insurance company was the Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire, founded in Charles Town in South Carolina, in 1735."

"No wonder lawyers, who control the legal system, have fought so hard, and with great success, against "no fault" insurance. No fault, no lawsuits. No lawsuits, no lunch."

"Not surprisingly, the insurance lobby recoils in horror at the prospect of automatic coverage ( including, when it was first proposed, Social Security), no matter how efficient it may be. Automatic coverage eliminates sales commissions and profit."

"The life insurance industry is filled with good people who believe in their work and their companies, but who may never have challenged the assumptions underlying their efforts."

"Having no national system of catastrophic health insurance, we have, through the courts, managed to patch together pieces of a not very satisfactory one."

"The life insurance policies advertised on the radio with the line "You cannot be turned down for this coverage!" are actually saying, " For policies this small, it would cost us more to decide whom to turn down than simply to accept everybody-and make them pay through the nose.""

"What kind of bank gives back 65 percent-often less-of what you deposit? Indeed, when you compare the services of a bank and an insurance company, common sense suggests something is out of whack."

"There are only two things as complicated as insurance accounting and I have no idea what they are."

"Life insurance in America has traditionally been dominated by mutual insurers. Twelve of the fifteen largest life insurers are mutuals."

"There's no question young drivers have far more accidents than older ones-but is it our aim to keep them off the roads? Or to allow only rich young people (who can afford the premiums) to drive?"

"Man's natural life span, 75 to 90 years or so, has not increased. It is the number of us who manage to attain it that has increased."

"Shipwreck was an ever-present possibility in 1912."

"In the last moments of the great ship’s doom, when all was plainly lost, when braver and hardier men might almost have been excused for doing practically anything to save themselves, they stood responsive to their conductor’s baton and played a recessional tune."

"The story of their gallantry came to epitomize a spirit of courage, duty and self-sacrifice."

"The musicians had played on the deck as the ship went down. They had forfeited their lives for the sake of others. They had played the tunes of hymns to induce a spirit of peace and calm. They were heroic."

"It was 11:45 at night according to ship’s time when the Titanic grazed along the iceberg that would send it to the ocean bed."

"Wallace Hartley: “I’ve always felt that, when men are called to face death suddenly, music is are more effective in cheering them on than all the firearms in creation.”"

"For those out on the water it provided a bizarre soundtrack to a sight that so many would only be able to describe as “like watching a moving picture.”"

"Not only had they behaved dutifully and without apparent concern for their own safety, but they also offered the hope that not all of the younger male generation were venial, lazy, proud, irreligious, inconsiderate, self-indulgent, weak-willed, and timorous."

"When everything on the ship was being turned upside down, the music remained the same. In the midst of mind-jarring abnormality, it was the one thing that retained its familiarity."

"This object of great beauty—even in its stricken condition—went down with a terrifying roar…a sound that survivors later described as the most bloodcurdling they had ever heard."

"The arrival of Wallace Hartley’s body became a focal point of national grief. This young man not only represented all who had died on the Titanic, but also the values that the British feared were in decline."

"The final dive of the ship, as the bow lay submerged and the stern rose out of the water, was truly horrendous for all who witnessed it."

"“If any glory at all attaches to the awful tragedy of the sea about which the world is still talking, it circles round the heads of these heroic bandsmen who played the mighty vessel to its doom"

"“I shall never forget the sight of that beautiful boat as she went down, the orchestra playing to the last, the lights burning until they were extinguished by the waves. It sounds so unreal, like a scene on the stage.”"

"They kept it up until the very end. Only the engulfing ocean had power to drown them into silence."

"It wasn’t hard for people to see the Titanic as a metaphor for Western civilization’s obsessions with speed, wealth, and conquest at the expense of contemplation, sharing and the well-being of one’s neighbor."

"“No praise could be sufficient for those courageous musicians whom we left behind. They were heroes to a man.”"