“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”

“The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards.”

“Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken...”

“Why nowadays there's a new fashion every day.”

“The novelties of one generation are only the resuscitated fashions of the generation before last.”

“In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:Be not the first by whom the new are tried,Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”