... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one's own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations.

The heavier our bodies, the higher our will, our spirit, rises above them.' 'The wearier we are, the more splendid the training.

Society in its full sense . . . is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it.

Western civilization, because of fortuitous historical circumstances, has spread itself more widely than any other local group that has so far been known.

It is my necessary breath of life to understand and expression is the only justification of life that I can feel without prodding.

Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. It does not matter whether, with the Northwest Coast, it requires delusions of self-reference, or with our own civilization the amassing of possessions. In any case the great mass of individuals take quite readily the form that is presented to them.

It is strange how long we rebel against a platitude until suddenly in a different lingo it looms up again as the only verity.