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Message: <blockquote data-quote="based_boomer" data-source="post: 1608669" data-attributes="member: 25362"><p>My favourite of the segments you chose was The Difference Between European Peoples. Can't decide whether the best one was the Russian: 'A Russian is self-assured precisely because he does not know anything and does not want to know anything, because he does not believe it possible to know anything fully'. This is self effacing humour since it is Tolstoy writing. But the best may be the German because it takes it to such an absurd level of self absorption: 'The German is self-assured worst of all, and most firmly of all, and most disgustingly of all, because he imagines that he knows the truth, science, which he has invented himself, but which for him is the absolute truth'. Both are great examples of exceptional writing skill.</p></blockquote><p></p>