Since in every European country between 1870 and 1914 there was a war party demanding armaments, an individualist party demanding ruthless competition, an imperialist party demanding a free hand over backward peoples, a socialist party demanding the conquest of power and a racialist party demanding internal purges against aliens - all of them, when appeals to greed and glory failed, invoked Spencer and Darwin, which was to say science incarnate.

When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.

Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces.

Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing it as a handicap

To denounce does not free the self from what it hates, any more than ignoring the past shuts off its influence.

Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions.

Speech, after all, is in some measure an expression of character, and flexibility in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the robots.