Cáo Cāo does not take me seriously. So you shouldn't either.
Childish arguments, it is curious to note, present exactly the same features. Just as our two subjects never communicate their thoughts on the why or the wherefore of phenomena, so they never support their statements with the "because" and "since" of logic. For them, with two exceptions only, arguing consists simply in the clash of affirmations, without any attempt at logical justification. It belongs to the type which we shall denote as "primitive argument" [. . .]
- Jean Piaget,
The Language and Thought of the Child
When the Great King dies, it is customary to build him a house composed of twenty chambers and in each chamber to hollow out a tomb for him. They break up stones until they become like powdered antimony. They spread a layer of this powder and then throw quicklime on the body. Beneath this house there is a river, a great river that flows rapidly, which they divert over the tomb.
They say: 'This is so that no devil, or man, or maggot, or reptile can reach it.
Once the king has been buried, they cut off the heads of those who buried him, so that no one knows in which of the chambers he lies. They call this tomb 'Paradise' and they say:
'He has entered Paradise.'
All the chambers are decorated with silk brocade woven with gold.
-Ahmad ibn Fadlan, travel reports.
My mother is a fish.
-William Faulkner,
As I Lay Dying
If one thing undone could be done, I would have it Kubricks' Napoleon movie.
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