The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.

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

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.

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.

Cultural creation... begins where chaos and insecurity end.

In the end, nothing is lost. Every event, for good or evil, has effects forever.

There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present.