“Alas! The time is coming when man will no longer give birth to stars. Alas! The time of the most contemptible man is coming, one who can no longer despise himself. Behold! I show you the last man.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)