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Some tribes [of monkeys] have taken to washing potatoes in the river before eating them, others have not. Sometimes migrating read more
Some tribes [of monkeys] have taken to washing potatoes in the river before eating them, others have not. Sometimes migrating groups of potato-washers meet non-washers, and the two groups watch each other's strange behavior with apparent bewilderment. But unlike the inhabitants of Lilliput, who fought holy crusades over the question at which end to break the egg, the potato-washing monkeys do not go to war with the non-washers, because the poor creatures have no language which would enable them to declare washing a diving commandment and eating unwashed potatoes a deadly heresy.
Society is like a lawn where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by read more
Society is like a lawn where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface.
Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, read more
Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human read more
The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human nature. The mob and the intellectuals derived from it the vision of a Golden Age which would arrive without fail once the noble human race could act according to its whims.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One usually must think out everything for oneself.
That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One usually must think out everything for oneself.
Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.
Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.
Civilized ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not read more
Civilized ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not at all suited to civilized circumstances.
There is no truth sure enough to justify persecution.
There is no truth sure enough to justify persecution.