The average man's opinions are much less foolish than they would be if he thought for himself.

I think it would be just to say the most essential characteristic of mind is memory, using this word in its broadest sense to include every influence of past experience on present reactions.

You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

Cruelty is, in theory, a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.

The experience of overcoming fear is extraordinarily delightful.