Robert E. Howard Quote

Barbarism has its vices, its sophistries, no less than civilization. Your cynicisms and sophistications are weak and childish beside the elemental cynicism, the vital sophistication of what you call savagery. If our virtues were unspoiled as a new-born panther cub, our sins were older than Nineveh.

"The Thunder-Rider" (c. 1936). Possibly Robwert's last complete story; first published in The Marchers of Valhalla (1972).