Religious unity can look like a carnival and religious liberty can look like a funeral.

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.

There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.

War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.

There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical...It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry...the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.