The artist usually sets out -- or used to -- to point a moral and adorn a tale. The tale, however, points the other way, as a rule. Two blankly opposing morals, the artist's and the tale's. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper functions of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

Ethics and equity and the principles of justice do not change with the calendar.

How to begin to educate a child. First rule: leave him alone. Second rule: leave him alone. Third rule: leave him alone. That is the whole beginning.

There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.

I should like [people] to like the purely individual thing in themselves, which makes them act in singleness. and They only like to do the collective thing.

I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum liberty to every individual?

In America the cohesion was a matter of choice and will. But in Europe it was organic.