Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country.
Was there a little time between the invention of language and the coming of true and false?
Good manners can render even virtue tolerable.
Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.
Contempt for others, like masturbation, is best as a secret pleasure.
Cheap thrill: moral outrage revels in its own innocence and in the guilt of the wicked Others.