I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer
gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history.
It would be unfair to say that I prefer the back of a book to its contents, but it is true that the sight of a lot of books gives me the hope that I may some day read them, which sometimes develops into the belief that I have read them.
Lives devoted to Beauty seldom end well.
As I have said, it may be difficult to define civilization, but it isn't so difficult to recognize barbarism.
The moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism, and that isn't enough.