Thus the criminal ceases to be a person, a subject of rights and duties, and becomes merely an object on which society can work. And this is, in principle, how Hitler treated the Jews. They were objects; killed not for ill desert but because, on his theories, they were a disease in society. If society can mend, remake, and unmake men at its pleasure, its pleasure may, of course, be humane or homicidal. The difference is important. But, either way, rulers have become owners.

We need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.

The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden-that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.

You all know," said the Guide, "that security is mortals' greatest enemy.

A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems.

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

I have read the Aeneid through more often than I have read any long poem.