New motto

The line was meant as an utter condemnation of the West, of a society whose direction is determined by its members' wants and needs, whims and desires, of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, a condemnation of societies not run by the autocratic rule of an overreaching mad tyranny impoverishing and slaughtering its faceless masses in never ending wars aimed at national greatness or religious purity -- and it's so good that I think I'll make it ideofact's new motto:

"Striving for the better within the circle of the commonplace."

Quoted in Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies, by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit.