Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.

[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.

It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.

Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it.

In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.