Monica Hesse

On my way to visit the corrosive art, I dropped in on another tour group, this one containing mostly Japanese Americans. On that tour, one tourist gently interrupted the tour guide to ask whether she would like a complete translation of some of the Japanese calligraphy that was written on one of the paintings. The tour guide, who was White, exclaimed delightedly that, yes she would, she would love the full translation. And now she has learned something new about the place where she worked every day, and a painting she walked past every hour.

And that is America. That is how we tell the story of America. Together. Each one of us contributing what we can, and when we learn something new, we think about how wonderful it is to learn it, rather than burying the new information down where it can't hurt us.

--"What exactly does Trump think is in the Smithsonian? Following his most recent executive order, I went in search of some 'corrosive ideology.'" Washington Post, April 2,2025.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/02/trump-art-corrosive-smithsonian-executive-order/

Gift link: https://wapo.st/3GbFUjX

Monica Hesse

On my way to visit the corrosive art that I cannot imagine Trump has actually seen, I dropped in on a school tour where the guide plopped down a bunch of sixth-graders in front of a magnificent portrait of George Washington — the most famous one, the one by Gilbert Stuart— and there she revealed that there are actually multiple versions of this portrait in existence. They're drafts. Some are just sketches; some contain just his face. They're all just rough drafts that got closer and closer to the real thing, as the artist tried his best to capture this complicated man, this founder of our country, this enslaver, this hero. And that is how history is made. Rough drafts, again and again.

"What exactly does Trump think is in the Smithsonian? Following his most recent executive order, I went in search of some 'corrosive ideology.'" Washington Post, April 2,2025.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/02/trump-art-corrosive-smithsonian-executive-order/

Gift link: https://wapo.st/3GbFUjX

Alexander McCall Smith

   "Former people," said Isabel. "I was thinking about the people that the Bolsheviks described as 'former people.' They were anybody whom they regarded as enemies of their revolution. It's such a chilling term. They had no rights to anything, really—no right to work, no property, no freedom. The only right they had was the right to be shot."

   "They actually used the term former people?" asked Andy.

   "Yes," said Isabel. "It's chilling, isn't it? And that sort of attitude has had many followers: Nazis, Pol Pot, Jean Kambanda in Rwanda—it's quite a big club. Deny somebody else's humanity and human worth and you're on a very well worn and familiar road."

—The Conditions of Unconditional Love (2024), p. 76. 

Alexander McCall Smith

She looked at her watch. She could always go back into her study and do some work, but the thought did not appeal. She could watch television, which was something she very rarely did and which seemed a particularly unattractive prospect at the moment. Television was noise, and people being confrontational; it was people shooting one another or finding bodies, or dancing about on the stage in glittery costumes. Television was a cleverly packaged anodyne, Huxley's soma in some respects, but it was not what she needed.

— The Conditions of Unconditional Love (2024), p. 177.

Abraham Lincoln

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind; and therefore…I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

Ella Emhoff

I think it goes without saying that we are all existing in various levels of constant anxiety starting this year off. It's hard to describe the mixture of emotions I'm feeling right now. Everything in my personal life and the world is changing so fast. Watching so many people I love in so much pain and so many communities getting their basic human rights destroyed is heartbreaking, to say the least. While it feels almost odd to be engaging in fashion week right now, it's been really wonderful getting to connect and unload with my community. I truly believe the best way of processing things like this is to be with people who share those feelings and feel them together. It can become so scary and powerless when you hold all the weight on just yourself. The more I've been open, the more I feel in control of things I can do and ways I can help. 

—In her Substack newsletter, February 10, 2025. 

Hannah Arendt

The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.

Srđan Cvijić

"I never liked the metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling water, but it applies very well to our situation," Srđan Cvijić at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy said. "One decision at a time, our regime has stripped Serbia of its democratic system. It didn't come overnight. First they captured the media, then the judiciary, then other independent institutions, then they started rigging the elections, and finally they are trying to strip us of the right to freedom of assembly.

"So my advice to Americans is never relax, always be on guard, democracy is not given, not even in the land of the free," Cvijić said. "Things can go backwards, you have to fight daily for your rights, otherwise someone will take them away from you.

"The most important thing to defend is solidarity and human decency," Cvijić added. "Do not allow the enemies of democracy to lower your own standards of political behaviour."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/03/europeans-democracy-advice-trump-americans

Joseph Welch to Senator Joseph McCarthy

Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness...You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?

June 9, 1954.

Attica Locke

The guest chairs in his office matched the carpet, which matched the buttered-beige colors of the walls. The décor was attractive and strong, but blander than she would have thought his wealth and position afforded him. Caren couldn't see the point of having that much money if all of it led to beige.

—The Cutting Season (2012), p. 130-31. 

Roxana Robinson

[Photographer Todd] Webb's images from those visits provide a window into the painter's daily life. O'Keeffe wore hats to protect her face, and scarves to protect her long, lustrous hair; she said you should never let your hair get sunburned. She wore crisp white collars, which turned whatever else she wore—black linen, blue denim—chic. She liked to make "Tiger's Milk" for breakfast, a concoction of banana, skim milk, powdered milk, wheat germ, and brewer's yeast, recommended by the nutritionist Adelle Davis. O'Keefe kept a series of Chow dogs, which she loved for their loyalty and dignity, their massive beauty. Their coats were so thick that she had a shawl made from the shedding.

—From "O'Keefe in the Frame," The Atlantic, February 2025, p. 20-25.