Science tells us how to heal and how to kill; it reduces our death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war; but only wisdom - desire coordinated in the light of all experience - can tell us when to heal and when to kill.

Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.

Who will dare to write a history of human goodness?

Time sanctifies everything; even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.

There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.

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