There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey. John Ruskin

A room without books is like a person without a soul. G.K. Chesterton

The self sees itself as a sovereign and individual consciousness, liberated by education from the traditional bonds of religion, by democracy from the strictures of class, by technology from the drudgery of poverty and by self-knowledge from the tyranny of the unconscious - and therefore free to pursue it's own destiny without God. Walker Percy

Let us be honest enough to confront our culture in its entirety and ask: is it merely coincidence that, in the midst of so much technological mastery and economic abundance, our art and thought continue to project a nihilistic image unparalleled in human history? Are we to believe there is not a connection between these facts? Theodore Rozak

The Vice of Contentment

It appears to me that contentment is considered to be a vice almost as terrible as being a person that believes in God. If one is content with what they have the economy may stumble and lead to a decline in the exploitation of limited resources and dangerous jobs in third world countries. If one is content you may have the time to think about something other than yourself (such as truth, beauty and what is moral). If you are content, maybe you would shut off the television and spend some time helping a neighbor. But the economy must thrive or we may not be able to see the latest Hollywood kitsch or we may be denied the new, cutting edge, electronic game.

Modern Man's Discontent

"At the heart of it there are likely to be moments of blank misgiving in which he (modern man) finds that the civilization of which he is a part leaves a dusty taste in his mouth. He may be very busy with many things, but he disovers one day that he is no longer sure they are worth doing. He has been much preoccupied; but he is no longer sure he knows why. He has become involved in an elaborate routine of pleasures; and they do not seem to amuse him very much. He finds it hard to believe that doing any one thing is better than doing any other thing, or, in fact, that it is better than doing nothing at all. It occurs to him that it is a great deal of trouble to live, and that even in the best of lives the thrills are few and far between. He begins more or less consciously to seek satisfactions, because he is no longer satisfied and all the while he realizes that the pursuit of happiness was always a most unhappy quest." Walter Lippmann

Blaise Pascal

We desire truth and find in ourselves nothing but uncertainty. We seek happiness and find only wretchedness and death. We are incapable of not desiring truth and happiness and inacapable of either certainty or happiness.