“On the list of european royalty's leisure activities, "overrunning Poland" has historically been a close second to "sex".”

“Sex had always been at the top of her favorite-things list, but this desire-this total, all-encompassing need-was something else entirely.”

“Europe, it is true, is a geographical and, within certain limits, an historical cultural conception. But the idea of Europe as an economic unit contradicts capitalist development in two ways. First of all there exist within Europe among the capitalist States – and will so long as these exist – the most violent struggles of competition and antagonisms, and secondly the European States can no longer get along economically without the non-European countries. ... At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. ...And if the idea of a European union in the economic sense has long been outstripped, this is no less the case in the political sense.....Only were one suddenly to lose sight of all these happenings and manoeuvres, and to transfer oneself back to the blissful times of the European concert of powers, could one say, for instance, that for forty years we have had uninterrupted peace. This conception, which considers only events on the European continent, does not notice that the very reason why we have had no war in Europe for decades is the fact that international antagonisms have grown infinitely beyond the narrow confines of the European continent, and that European problems and interests are now fought out on the world seas and in the by-corners of Europe.”

“An image of thought called philosophy has been formed historically and it effectively stops people from thinking.”

“Something about her suggested that her leisure activities included wrestling large woodland animals and banging bricks together.”

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”