“Jerusalem has a way of disappointing in tormenting both conquerors and visitors. The contrast between the real and heavenly cities is so excruciating that a hundred patients a year are committed to this city's asylum, suffering from the Jerusalem Syndrome, a madness of anticipation, disappointment and delusion.” DisappointmentDisillusionment Book:Jerusalem: The Biography Source: Jerusalem: The Biography
“Greatness needs courage (above all) and willpower, charisma, intelligence and creativity but it also demands characteristics that we often associate with the least admirable people: reckless risk-taking, brutal determination, sexual thrill-seeking, brazen showmanship, obsession close to fixation and something approaching insanity. In other words, the qualities required for greatness and wickedness, for heroism and monstrosity are not too far distant from each other. The Norwegians alone have a word for this: stormannsgalskap – the madness of great men.” GreatnessMadness Book:Titans of History Source: Titans of History
“It was not the lover she regretted,' wrote a Swiss imperial tutor, who understood their relationship. 'It was the friend.” Catherine The GreatPotemkinImperial Love Affair Book:Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner Source: Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner
“Stalin was always exceptional, even from childhood. We have relied on Trotsky’s unrecognizably prejudiced portrait for too long. The truth was different. Trotsky’s view tells us more about his own vanity, snobbery and lack of political skills than about the early Stalin.” YouthJoseph StalinLeon Trotsky Book:Young Stalin Source: Young Stalin
“What the fanatical Jewish conservatives regarded as heathen pollution, cosmopolitans saw as civilization. This was the start of a new pattern in Jerusalem: the more sacred she became, the more divided.” Cultural DifferencesCulture WarsRed State Mentality Book:Jerusalem: The Biography Source: Jerusalem: The Biography