Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.
George Orwell
Orwell apparently has a trove of very apt observations. I especially like the lead in sentence, I’ve not thought of it from that angle but it rings true.
Here’s one I just found:
Lord Salisbury, once Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Words of wisdom.