Kindliness seems to exist primarily as an animal instinct, so deeply rooted that mental degeneracy, which works from the top down,does not destroy it until the mind sinks to the lower grades of idiocy.

The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.

Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also.

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves but the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind.

Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God.

The idealist's program of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.