I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.

[Napoleon deployed] every available resource to inflict all-out defeats on [his] enemies.

One of the things that people complain about is loneliness, disconnectedness. If you live in a society where your life is rarely threatened and most of your relationships are more on an economic exchange basis, then this could leave people feeling less connected.

If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate.

Language mavens commonly confuse their own peeves with a worsening of the language.

Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.

Since violence is largely a male pastime, cultures that empower women tend to move away from the glorification of violence and are less likely to breed dangerous subcultures of rootless young men.