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.
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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.
I think I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.
I think I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.
Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction read more
Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to publick opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem the true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, and the wrong the right.
Man is the animal that intends to shoot himself out into interplanetary space, after having given up on the problem read more
Man is the animal that intends to shoot himself out into interplanetary space, after having given up on the problem of an efficient way to get himself five miles to work and back each day.
The avowed aim of all utopian movements is to put an end to history and to establish a final and read more
The avowed aim of all utopian movements is to put an end to history and to establish a final and permanent calm.
In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the read more
In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender's hold by upsetting his balance.
People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
Society is a madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police.
Society is a madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police.
I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and read more
I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it.
