The Emperor himself amassed his great riches. The older he grew, the greater became his greed, his pitiable cupidity... he and his people took millions from the state treasurer and left cemeteries full of people who had died of hunger, cemeteries visible from the windows of the royal palace
The coming peril is the intellectual, educational, psychological and artistic overproduction, which, equally with economic overproduction, threatens the well-being of contemporary civilisation. People are inundated, blinded, deafened, and mentally paralysed by a flood of vulgar and tasteless externals, leaving them no time for leisure, thought, or creation from within themselves.
People think cruises are for old folk, but they are amazing, as you get to see so many places, and you're never stuck as you're docked in a different port every day.
It is difficult for young people to live things down. We will tolerate vice, grand larceny and the quieter forms of murder in our contemporaries... but our children's friends must show a blank service record.
It's very inconvenient to be loved. Nearly everyone has found that out, sooner or later. The fewer people who love you the less you will have to suffer.
I am amazed that Congressmen can pass a bill imposing severe penalties on anyone who burns the American flag, whereas they are responsible for burning that for which the flag stands: the United States as a territory, as a people, and as a biological manifestation. That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.
I cannot conceive why people will always mix up my own character and opinions with those of the imaginary beings which, as a poet, I have the right and liberty to draw.
This famous quote hangs over my desk, as well as the desks of many people with the hubris and optimism to believe they can change the world for the better. It seems implausible, yet time and again history has proven it true. Virtually every major shift in cultural history can trace its origins to the work of a small group, often gathered around an innovative thinker or body of thought.