The Virgin filled so enormous a space in the life and thought of the time that one stands now helpless before the mass of testimony to her direct action and constant presence in every moment and form of the illusion which men thought they thought their existence.

One sought not absolute truth. One sought only a spool on which to wind the thread of history without breaking it.

The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women.

Teachers affect eternity. There is no telling where their influence stops.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

You may cut off the heads of every rich man now living--of every statesman--every literary, and every scientific authority, without in the least changing the social situation. Artists, of course, disappeared long ago as social forces. So did the church. Corporations are not elevators, but levellers, as I see them.

An American Virgin would never dare command; an American Venus would never dare exist.