In the last analysis civilization is based upon the food supply.

If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

So I should say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with scepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of individual pleasure. A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.

The South creates the civilizations, the North conquers them, ruins them, borrows from them, spreads them: this is one summary of history.

Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational; and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.

We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.