I don't really know how it feels for an American to go to Mexico, but if you come from Germany, Mexico is a really exotic place. It has this laid back vibe, at least in the countryside, and things don't seem to be as over-civilized as they are here i...
The northern nations who burst the barriers of the Roman Empire and spread themselves over the most flourishing countries of Europe soon became sensible of the advantages and pleasures of civilization. They adopted the improvements and, in some insta...
My mother saw nothing inconsistent in her traditional desire to look after her husband and children and her radical politics. She began her civil rights work before most people had ever heard the word 'feminism,' and in those early years, she was foc...
I think that's one thing that, you know, we all need to remember is that, you know, politics, even though it's been really rough, is that we are all human beings first. And that it is more important for us to have civil dialogue. And you know what? I...
One's politics are part of one even when one is writing. But if I want to say anything about the state of civil society, I will write an essay. The responsibilities you feel as a novelist are literary ones, I think, not civic ones. And I think politi...
There's no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line as a parent because you are civilizing these raw things. They will tip the coffee over and finger-paint on the table. At some point, you have to say, 'We're gonna have to clean that up b...
Well, I think, you know, the arts are really what - one of the things that make this country strong. We always think it's our economy or our military power, but in fact, I think it's our culture, our civilization, our ideas, our creativity.
Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race ...
I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human...
Improving the Internet is just one means, albeit an important one, by which to improve the human condition. It must be done with an appreciation for the civil and human rights that deserve protection - without pretending that access itself is such a ...
The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowle...
Al Jazeera is the opinion of other opinion, independent. Al Jazeera is diverse, reflection of the collective mind of the nations and cultures and civilizations that we report from and we report to, bridge of dialogue. This is what Al Jazeera is all a...
Story was that human civilization started to develop with first social network. Emerged where population concentration was high. Helped propel to where we are now. Facebook is next step of creating a huge human brain to embrace hundreds of million, p...
While I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I bet that the number of homosexual people per thousand has not fluctuated all that much over the centuries. I do not believe the dented wisdom my father used to extol, that homosexuality was a sure...
The war is always going badly.
The war changed everybody's attitude. We became international almost overnight.
The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
The war to preserve the privilege of mythmaking
War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.
Lysistrata: To seize the treasury; no more money, no more war.
War in heaven makes no peace on earth.
