A Brief History of Vice Quotes

“History, as taught by schools, has white washed the drunkenness out of the past. It has minimized the influence of drugs on history's great thinkers, and covered up the impact of prostitution and insults on human development.”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization

“It’s significant that we’ve been building musical instruments more than twice as long as we’ve been brewing alcohol. In The Origins of Music, published in 1999, Walter Freeman of Berkeley University suggested that humans might have been making music longer than we’ve been starting fires. In an age before drugs, before cities, before any other comforts existed, the dopamine high of listening to really good music was one of the most intense experiences people could make for themselves.”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization

“But, as I learned from talking to the scientist behind the study cited in that article, the real theory is much more interesting. “Beer” didn’t give birth to civilization alone. The desire to hold bigger and better feasts featuring, yes, beer, but also piles of food and music, is what led to the birth of human civilization. We literally started building towns and, eventually, cities so that we could throw cooler parties.”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization

“See, I’m a nerd. So when I realize I like something (in this case “general debauchery”), my natural impulse is to start reading as much about it as I can. That’s how I learned that one of the first great victories for women’s rights in history was thanks to a prostitute who became an empress. It’s also how I learned that modern genetic science was made possible by two different scientists’ acid trips. And as I learned more about the wonderful ways vice has changed human history, I read about the long-extinct ways people used to enjoy their vices. Frankly, I was inspired. I experimented with ancient Native American nose pipes. I ate balls of coffee and butter in the style of the ancient Ethiopians. I went without eating for four days and drank wine mixed with barley and cheese to see if it would make me trip like a Greek philosopher. I hunted after a mythical hallucinogenic drink made by drowning poisonous salamanders in booze. The book that follows is everything I’ve ever learned about the things we pretend not to like in polite company. It’s a celebration of the brave, drunken pioneers who built our globe-spanning civilization. Reading this book will arm you with more than just information; it will provide you with step-by-step guides for re-creating the intoxicating experiences of our ancestors. I hope what I’ve written here will help you appreciate the importance of vice in our shared human history and understand that, if we’re able to get higher than any people before us, it’s only because we’re standing on the shoulders of giants.”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization

“Parties are the basis of international government. Brewing beer wasn’t the sole focus of agriculture. But because it was so well loved and such a status symbol, producing enough of it was of major importance to the state, such as it was 14,000 years ago.”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization

“Beer” didn’t give birth to civilization alone. The desire to hold bigger and better feasts featuring, yes, beer, but also piles of food and music, is what led to the birth of human civilization. We literally started building towns and, eventually, cities so that we could throw cooler parties.”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization

“And if you aren’t afraid to swallow your pride and admit that we are, in fact, hardwired to give some fraction of a fuck what Donald Trump has to say, I’ll do my best to take you back to where this all started . . . Monkeys,”
― Robert Evans, A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization