When a man meets his make, society begins.

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops, but the kind of man that the country turns out.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken.

Man is a piece of the universe made alive.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

We believe that the defects of so many perverse and so many frivolous people, who make up society, are organic, and society is a hospital of incurables