Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that read more

Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that a special warning strip of land around the edge of a baseball field lets a player know that he is about to run into a concrete wall when he is preoccupied with catching the ball. The wider that strip of land and the more sensitive the player is to the changing composition of the ground under his feet as he pursues the ball, the more effective the warning. Romanticizing or lionizing as "individualistic" those people who disregard social cues and inducements increases the danger of head-on collisions with inherent social limits. Decrying various forms of social disapproval is in effect narrowing the warning strip.

Scientific progress consists in the development of new concepts.

Scientific progress consists in the development of new concepts.

Scientific research sooner or later, but inevitably, encounters something ultimately given that it cannot trace back to something else of read more

Scientific research sooner or later, but inevitably, encounters something ultimately given that it cannot trace back to something else of which it would appear as the regular or necessary derivative. Scientific progress consists in pushing further back this ultimately given.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often read more

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.

To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.

Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization read more

Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at read more

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

Society is like air; very high up, it is sublimated--too low down, a perfect choke-damp.

Society is like air; very high up, it is sublimated--too low down, a perfect choke-damp.

Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians,
friends, lovers and husbands.

Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians,
friends, lovers and husbands.