In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.

The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks.

All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.

Friendship is a common belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks and hobgoblins.

Conscience is the accumulated sediment of ancestral faint- heartedness

The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts--not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.

What ass first let loose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege?