A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

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

The experience of the past lives little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient.

As knowledge grew, fear decreased; men thought less of worshiping the unknown, and more of overcoming it.

by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them

The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It's the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.