Ryan Holiday Quote
The historian E. P. Thompson said that history never happens as the actors suspect, that history is instead the record of unintended consequences. The assassination of Julius Caesar does not restore the Roman Republic, it leads to a brutal civil war and, at the end, another emperor. The Allied powers destroy Hitler and Germany but empower Russia and Stalin and create a new Cold War to follow the conclusion of the hot one. There is always something you didn’t expect, always some second-or third-order consequence. Peter Thiel’s conspiracy had achieved its intended outcome. A negotiated peace had been found. Gawker.com would cease to publish. A new leader was in charge of the rest of the sites, some of the offending articles would be removed. But what would the consequences, intended and otherwise, of it all be? What had this brilliant, independent mind neglected to see? What, if anything, would come as a surprise? His own power and strength for one.
The historian E. P. Thompson said that history never happens as the actors suspect, that history is instead the record of unintended consequences. The assassination of Julius Caesar does not restore the Roman Republic, it leads to a brutal civil war and, at the end, another emperor. The Allied powers destroy Hitler and Germany but empower Russia and Stalin and create a new Cold War to follow the conclusion of the hot one. There is always something you didn’t expect, always some second-or third-order consequence. Peter Thiel’s conspiracy had achieved its intended outcome. A negotiated peace had been found. Gawker.com would cease to publish. A new leader was in charge of the rest of the sites, some of the offending articles would be removed. But what would the consequences, intended and otherwise, of it all be? What had this brilliant, independent mind neglected to see? What, if anything, would come as a surprise? His own power and strength for one.
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About Ryan Holiday
Prior to becoming an author, Holiday served as the former director of marketing and eventually an advisor for American Apparel. Holiday's debut to writing was in 2012, when he published Trust Me, I'm Lying. Holiday's notable works include his books on Stoic philosophy, such as The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, Discipline is Destiny, Courage is Calling, and Lives of the Stoics. He is controversial for his marketing of Stoicism in the form of "Memento Mori" coins and selling courses and calendars.