"Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate."

"Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design."

"The artist finds, that the more he can confine his attention to a particular part of any work, his productions are the more perfect, and grow under his hands in the greater quantities."

"Like the winds that we come we know not whence and blow whither soever they list, the forces of society are derived from an obscure and distant origin. They arise before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, not the speculations of men."

"The difference between the Parthenon and the World Trade Center, between a French wine glass and a German beer mug, between Bach and John Philip Sousa, between Sophocles and Shakespeare, between a bicycle and a horse, though explicable by historical moment, necessity, and destiny, is before all a difference of imagination."

"An empire that extends itself selectively is just being prudent about its own limitations. A republic that supports democratization selectively is another matter."

"In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour."

"A society that has made 'nostalgia' a marketable commodity on the cultural exchange quickly repudiates the suggestion that life in the past was in any important way better than life today."