We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.

The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.

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

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.

From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.

History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.

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