Quotes

“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently.” — David Graeber

“That is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive. But if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words. They seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say from a desire to be instructed they go on telling just the same thing forever.” — Plato

“You can definitely feel the tension — there are military, soldiers, and police everywhere. You can’t just buy a SIM card, and people (especially the youth) seem to be indoctrinated — they say they’re standing up against terrorism. When you enter the country, they collect all your biometrics and fingerprints at passport control — it wasn’t like that before. You can really feel the tension; people avoid speaking openly because it’s dangerous. But life goes on — not everyone can leave. Ordinary people seem to just keep living the way they always have.” — My (anonymous) Kazakh friend on a visit to Moscow in October 2025

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu