"I had learned too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled “Heil Schuschnigg” today would thunder “Heil Hitler” tomorrow."
- Stefan Zweig

“The herd instinct of the mob was not yet as offensively powerful in public life as it is today; freedom in what you did or did not do in private life was taken for granted...toleration was not deplored as a weakness & debility, but was praised as an ethical force”
- Stefan Zweig
“It remains an irrefragable law of history that contemporaries are denied a recognition of the early beginnings of the great movements which determine their times.”
- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
“How Lilliputian all those anxieties were, how serene that time!”
- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
“For a society is always most cruel to those who disclose and reveal its secrets, when through dishonesty society itself has outraged Nature.”
- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
"It is never until one realizes that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one’s own existence"
- Stefan Zweig
"Nothing on earth puts more pressure on the human mind than nothing."
- Stefan Zweig
"All office workers are afraid of being late for work."
- Stefan Zweig
“We are happy when people/things conform and unhappy when they don't. People and events don't disappoint us, our models of reality do. It is my model of reality that determines my happiness or disappointments.”
- Stefan Zweig
“It always demands a far greater degree of courage for an individual to oppose an organized movement than to let himself be carried along with the stream."
- Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna in 1881. He was Jewish. He was a novelist, playwright, journalist & very successful. He fled the Nazis. By 1942 he & his wife were living in Brazil where they both committed suicide the day after he posted "The World of Yesterday" to his publisher

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I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹

I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹