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.

Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent

No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor, but honest.

If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.

Opinions which justify cruelty are inspired by cruel impulses.

What is new in our time is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices.

It is only through imagination that men become aware of what the world might be; without it, ‘progress’ would become mechanical and trivial.