"Man is not troubled by the events, but the meaning he gives them."
— Epictetus

"...four rational people conversing..."
— Goethe, on the string quartet

"It is difficult for the father of a family not to regard as a personal enemy the author of a bad book that brings corruption into the hearts of his children."
— Louis de Bonald

“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.”
— Schopenhauer

“It is extremely improbable that we have suddenly become better and smarter than our predecessors. In fact, what has happened is that we have lost the ability to understand functional social patterns other than markets and bureaucracies. The result is that the past appears irrational, our society is plagued by dysfunctions we cannot understand or deal with, and we treat our own blindness and stupidity as the triumph of virtue and enlightenment.”
— James Kalb

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
— Hemingway

Declare war against all that is tame and feeble in you, yet never kill the child within your heart or leave it to starve and perish.

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
— Hemingway

In the end, it is the strength of the warrior that which protects Beauty, not the flowery language of poets who hymn it.

Beauty is honored by the spilled blood of warriors more so than the ink of poets.