
Source: 1970s, On purposeful systems., 1972, p. 237, as cited in: William E. Smith (2008) The Creative Power. p. 58.
Bunmeiron no Gairyaku [An Outline of a Theory of Civilization] (1875).
Context: Robbery and murder are the worst of human crimes; but in the West there are robbers and murderers. There are those who form cliques to vie for the reins of power and who, when deprived of that power, decry the injustice of it all. Even worse, international diplomacy is really based on the art of deception. Surveying the situation as a whole, all we can say is that there is a general prevalence of good over bad, but we can hardly call the situation perfect. When, several thousand years hence, the levels of knowledge and virtue of the peoples of the world will have made great progress (to the point of becoming utopian), the present condition of the nations of the West will surely seem a pitifully primitive stage. Seen in this light, civilization is an open-ended process. We cannot be satisfied with the present level of attainment of the West.
Source: 1970s, On purposeful systems., 1972, p. 237, as cited in: William E. Smith (2008) The Creative Power. p. 58.
“Her soul's light shines through,
But her soul cannot be seen.”
Main Street and Other Poems (1917), A Blue Valentine
Context: Her soul's light shines through,
But her soul cannot be seen.
It is something elusive, whimsical, tender, wanton, infantile, wise
And noble.
"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" (1973)
Speech at the National Press Club (2004)
“We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.”