All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

I don't know what to say about this book. The experience on which it is founded is so extraordinary, that an honest record of it should be preserved . . . But it would have driven me mad; and I am not sure that the author came out of it without a slight derangement.

Social progress takes effect through the replacement of all institutions by new ones; and since every institution involves the recognition of the duty of conforming to it, progress must involve the repudiation of an established duty at every step.

A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.

Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

You will think less of the art, when you know the artist

It is monstrous that custom should force us to display our faces ostentatiously, however worn and wrinkled and mean they may be, whilst carefully concealing all our other parts, however shapely and well preserved.