The masses are the material of democracy, but its form-that is to say, the laws which express the general reason, justice, and utility-can only be rightly shaped by wisdom, which is by no means a universal property.

To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits.

Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude.

There is an illusion of central position, justifying one's own purposes as right and everybody else¹s as wrong, and providing a proper degree of paranoia. Righteous ends, thus approved, absolve of guilt the most violent means.

For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.

What we do not understand we have no right to judge

[T]he habit of scientific analysis ... exhausts the material offered to it.