The preservation of a democratic civilization requires the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. - Reinhold Niebuhr

Religion, declares the modern man, is consciousness of our highest social values. Nothing could be further from the truth. True religion is a profound uneasiness about our highest social values.

This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.

To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.