What is called virtue in the common sense of the word has nothing to do with this or that man's prosperity, or even happiness.

The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue.

Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.

English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts.

The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness.

A person possessed with an idea cannot be reasoned with.

That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.