Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.

Explanations exist: they have existed for all times, for there is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible and wrong.

It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous im…

Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.