174 Quotes by Sebastian Junger

Meteorologist see perfect in strange things, and the meshing of three completely independent weather systems to form a hundred-year event is one of them. My God, thought Case, this is the perfect storm.

Billy's at 44 north, 56 west and heading straight into meteorological hell.

Anyone who wants to overthrow an established power--a government, an army, or even a dominant corporation--must, first and foremost, believe they are fulfilling a kind of historic destiny.

At the heart of most stable governments is a willingness to share power with people you disagree with--and may even hate.

Like wealth discrepancies, mortality rates provide a rough indication of relative freedom, and when social classes die at radically different rates from one another, some are obviously less free. An important part of freedom is not having to make sacrifices for people who don't have to make sacrifices for you.

In the long run, early failure is probably just as great a generator of freedom as early success.

Poverty is its own cruel trap but still raises questions about whether we own our possessions or are owned by them. Somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania we saw a man who had tied the handle of a snow shovel to his belt and then piled all his belongings onto the blade, which sledded along behind him. Depending on your perspective he was either the freest man in the country or just the poorest.

No people can live more happy than the Indians did in times of peace...Their lives were a continual round of pleasures.

Women are the final component ins defeating a dominant power. First and foremost, they impart a kind of moral legitimacy to protests that could otherwise be dismissed as simple mayhem. And, like small men in a fistfight, they are often underestimated in ways that can be endlessly exploited against an overconfident adversary.