In the advance of civilization, it is new knowledge which paves the way, and the pavement is eternal.

Civilization is being poisoned by its own waste products

Civilization ceases when we no longer respect and no longer put into their correct places the fundamental values, such as work, family and country such as the individual, honor and religion.

Вся человеческая цивилизация с самого начала была не чем иным, как с каждым часом все более интенсивным тлением, и никто не знает, как долго она будет тлеть и когда начнет угасать.

Poetry is the elder sister of history, the mother of language, the ancestress of civilization.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.

[Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Nov. 1980), pp. 16-32]