Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries. – Mark Twain, quoted in More Maxims of Mark compiled by Merle Johnson, 1927

When you can’t do something truly useful, you tend to vent the pent up energy in something useless but available, like snappy dressing. – Lois McMaster Bujold

Progress may have been all right once, but it went on too long… – Ogden Nash, “Come, Come, Kerouac! My Generation is Beater Than Yours,” New Yorke

Civilization is the lambs skin in which barbarism masquerades. – Thomas Bailey Aldrich