A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself spiritually the underdog.

We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration.

The democratic idealist is prone to make light of the whole question of standards and leadership because of his unbounded faith in the plain people.

The papacy again, representing the traditional unity of European civilization, has also shown itself unable to limit effectively the push of nationalism.

A person who has sympathy for mankind in the lump, faith in its future progress, and desire to serve the great cause of this progress, should be called not a humanist, but a humanitarian, and his creed may be designated as humanitarianism.

The human mind, if it is to keep its sanity, must maintain the nicest balance between unity and plurality.

Very few of the early Italian humanists were really humane.