We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within. – Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man

Civilization: a thin veneer over barbarianism. – John M. Shanahan, The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less)

Since the Middle Ages progress in hygiene has been characterized by the conquest of stink. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)

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