The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back to bondange.
Sir Alex Fraser Tyler, 1742-1843, Scottish jurist and historian
from The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic (1799).
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