We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind.

To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self.

There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to "Americanize" him.

Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.

It is partly to avoid consciousness of greed that we prefer to associate with those who are at least as greedy as we ourselves. Those who consume much less are a reproach.

The idea that seeing life means going from place to place and doing a great variety of obvious things is an illusion natural to dull minds.

To persuade is more trouble than to dominate, and the powerful seldom take this trouble if they can avoid it.