Civilization Quote Day

It’s a Friday, so maybe we need just a little something to think about over the weekend, instead of a long article. Today’s quotes are from my collection with the theme Civilization.

“If our community does not beget men who have the power to make sound social principles generally acceptable, civilization is lost, whatever the system of government may be.”—Ludwig von Mises

“The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.”—Fred Astaire

“A question of some doubt might be raised…as to the rights and duties of society towards its members, infant and adult. Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does this right and duty extend? To guard the life of the infant, his property, his instruction, his morals? The Roman father was supreme in all these; we draw the line, but where? Public sentiment does not seem to have traced it precisely. Nor is it necessary in the present case. It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.”—Thomas Jefferson, 1817, Bill for Establishing Elementary Schools, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. By Albert Ellery Bergh

“Evidence continues to accumulate that the persistence of problems like poverty and welfare dependency is strongly associated with the rise in the number of children born out of wedlock.

“To a striking degree, the challenges of the federal budget are linked to and aggravated by the fracturing in family budgets brought on by the failure of families to form and government policies that neglect the best adhesive to repair that fracturing—the bonds of marriage. The state of American families went unmentioned tonight but it is vital that this conversation, and its implications for the State of the Union, happen with a new urgency at the national level.”—Chuck Donovan, response to SOTU January 25, 2011, for The Heritage Foundation