You can't make flivers ...

You can\'t make flivers without steel - and you can\'t make tragedies without social instability. The world\'s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can\'t get. They\'re well off; they\'re safe; they\'re never ill; they\'re not afraid of death; they\'re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they\'re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they\'ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they\'re so conditioned that they pratically can\'t help behaving as they ought to behave.
You can't make flivers without steel - and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they pratically can't help behaving as they ought to behave.

Quotes from the same author

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
No man ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as does a Siamese tomcat when he yawns in the face of his amorously importunate wife.