One could judge the degree of civilization of a country by the social and political position of its women

Despots prefer the friendship of the dog, who, unjustly mistreated and debased, still loves and serves the man who wronged him.

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress.

Any civilized administration, however organized, prefers its own good to that of the people.

It is known that the best nations have always been those which concede the greatest amount of liberty to women.

Civilization is a social plague on the planet, and vices are just as necessary to it as is a virus to disease.

Certainly in each social period, youth must be made to venerate the dominant absurdities.

We must, then, apply the principle of Doubt to Civilization; we must doubt its necessity, its excellence, and its permanence.

Who is wiser: the man who plants flowers along life's way or the man who makes it bristle with thorns?

Hosts of merchants encumber the cities, and the streets are cluttered with solicitors who swarm without limit or purpose.

...commerce, which is mistakenly classified among the productive forms of work, ought to be ranked first among the parasitical professions like those of monk, soldier, lawyer etc.

America is no longer a country that cares about experts. In fact, it hates experts. If you can't fit a story into the culture-war storyline in ten seconds or less, it dies.

I don't want to see no dead body. Willie ain't in there. She put her walkin' shoes on. She gone to see the Lord.

Summer had a way of being full of fun and things to do and plenty of times of doing nothing and feeling bored.

The best use of a journal is to print the largest practical amount of important truth - truth which tends to make mankind wiser and thus happier.

No one can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems.

It is curious to look back and realize upon what trivial and apparently coincidental circumstances great events frequently turn as easily and naturally as a door on its hinges.

If it weren't my life, I wouldn't have believed it.

I've had a tough time with Pynchon. I liked him very much when I first read him. I liked him less with each book. He got denser and more complex in a way that didn't really pay off.

Swaraj is not a product of excitement or intoxication. Swaraj will be the natural and inevitable result of business like habits.

Perfection is unattainable, so I like to live in imperfection.