“Culture is like a smog. To live within it, you must breathe some of it in and, inevitably, be contaminated.”

1963, Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty speech
Context: Continued unrestricted testing by the nuclear powers, joined in time by other nations which may be less adept in limiting pollution, will increasingly contaminate the air that all of us must breathe. Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard — and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby — who may be born long after we are gone — should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Source: The lever of riches: Technological creativity and economic progress, 1992, p. 327

The Book of Mirdad (1948)

1981

Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

The Radical Reformission http://www.zondervan.com/Books/Detail.asp?ISBN=0310256593 (Zondervan, 2004, p. 40)

The Objectivist February 1971

As quoted in "2011's Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters" http://www.fpa.es/en/awards/2011/leonard-cohen-1/speech/