Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.

Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.

There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

Conversation in its happiest development is a link, equally exquisite and adequate, between mind and mind, a system by which men approach one another with sympathy and enjoyment, a field for the finest amenities of civilization, for the keenest and most intelligent display of social activity. It is also our solace, our inspiration, and our most rational pleasure. It is a duty we owe to one another; it is our common debt to humanity.

The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world's mirth.

Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. ... under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.