Civilization, that great ...

Civilization, that great fraud of our times, has promised man that by complicating his existence it would multiply his pleasures. ... Civilization has promised man freedom, at the cost of giving up everything dear to him, which it arrogantly treated as lies and fantasies. ... Hour by hour needs increase and are nearly always unsatisfied, peopling the earth with discontented rebels. The superfluous has become a necessity and luxuries indispensable.
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 Isabelle Eberhardt

Quotes from the same author

The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.
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 Isabelle Eberhardt
I will only ever be drawn to people who suffer from that special and fertile anguish called self-doubt, or the thirst for the ideal, and desire for the soul's mystical fire. Self-satisfaction because of some material accomplishment will never be for me. The truly great are those who quest for better spiritual selves.
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 Isabelle Eberhardt
The savage hatred I feel for crowds is getting worse, natural enemies that they are of imagination and of thought.
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 Isabelle Eberhardt
Life on the open road is liberty... to be alone, to have few needs, to be unknown, everywhere a foreigner and at home, and to walk grandly and solitarily in conquest of the world.
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 Isabelle Eberhardt