One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.

The spirit's foe in man has not been simplicity, but sophistication.

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular.

You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.

The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.

The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others.