I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to read more

I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows read more

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous...The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

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.

If you pray hard enough, water will run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of read more

If you pray hard enough, water will run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!

One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.

One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.

...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to read more

...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system.

Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which read more

Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition.

We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which read more

We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.

For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and
aversation towards society in any man, hath read more

For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and
aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the
savage beast.