"Western civilization presents one of the most difficult tasks for historical analysis, because it is not yet finished, because we are a part of it and lack perspective, and because it presents considerable variation from our pattern of historical change."

“Every civilization must be organized in such a way that it has invention, capital accumulation, and investment.”

“When you destroy people's religious expression, they will establish secularized religions like Marxism.”

“...another cause of today’s instability is that we now have a society in America, Europe and much of the world which is totally dominated by the two elements of sovereignty that are not included in the state structure: control of credit and banking, and the corporation. These are free of political controls and social responsibility and have largely monopolized power in Western Civilization and in American society. They are ruthlessly going forward to eliminate land, labor, entrepreneurial-managerial skills, and everything else the economists once told us were the chief elements of production. The only element of production they are concerned with is the one they can control: capital.”

“...in the last thousand years. If we go back before 976... the main core of people's life and experience... was in the religious, emotional and social levels. They had religious beliefs, they had social and emotional relationships with people they saw every day. ...controls and rewards were internalized. ...This is why they could get along without a state in 976: all the significant controls were internalized.”

“...today everything is commercialized--politics, religion, education, ideology, belief, the armed services. ...Everything has its price.”

“...empires and civilizations do not collapse because of deficiencies on the military or the political levels.”