The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles.

As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it.

To retire to the monastery, or the woods, or the sea, is to escape from the sharp suggestions that spur on ambition.

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.

A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory.

Freedom is the opportunity for right development, for development in accordance with the progressive ideal of life that we have in conscience.

The passion of self-aggrandizement is persistent but plastic; it will never disappear from a vigorous mind, but may become morally higher by attaching itself to a larger conception of what constitutes the self.