“Every civilization depends on the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness-- they cannot work and their civilization collapses”

“What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in commerce ... Men must want to do things of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organisations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work, every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you overorganize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness — they cannot work and their civilization collapses.”

“…Mellor’s statement is extremist in two directions: human civilization is in imminent peril, and only one solution will work. I doubt both these formulations, and almost every fiction I have encountered that depends upon them.”

“Civil government cannot let any group ride roughshod over others simply because their consciences tell them to do so.”

“Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

“When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.”