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Our commonest man, emulating his superiors, forges ahead with a brick on the safety valve of his conscience.

— Philip Wylie Generation of Vipers (1942)

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More quotes by Philip Wylie

Education is not a function of any church — or even of a city — or a state; it is a function of all mankind.

Generation of Vipers (1942)

What egotism, what stupid vanity, to suppose that a thing could not happen because you could not conceive it!

When Worlds Collide (1933)

The blame for Armageddon lies on man. And the millennium will come only when the average man exhibits a scientific integrity about all he is and does — instead of half of it.

Generation of Vipers (1942)

Ignorance is not bliss — it is oblivion. Determined ignorance is the hastiest kind of oblivion.

Generation of Vipers (1942)

There is no advance without strife.

After Worlds Collide (1934)

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Philip Wylie (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.