The war of ideas is a Greek invention. It is one of the most important inventions ever made. Indeed, the possibility of fighting with words and ideas instead of fighting with swords is the very basis of our civilization, and especially of all its legal and parliamentary institutions.
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It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.
Our civilization is haunted by the notion that the quickest way of doing anything is invariably the best.
Civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic.
But chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability. And instability means the end of civilization. You can’t have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices.
God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make a choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.
Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you?” asked Bernard. The Savage nodded “I ate civilization.
I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then,” he added in a lower tone, “I ate my own wickedness.
Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds – a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents.
The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.
