We cannot hand our faith to one another.... Even in the Middle Ages, when faith was theoretically uniform, it was always practically individual.

Is there something in trade that desiccates and flattens out, that turns men into dried leaves at the age of forty? Certainly there is. It is not due to trade but to intensity of self-seeking, combined with narrowness of occupation. Business has destroyed the very knowledge in us of all other natural forces except business.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

A vision of truth which does not call upon us to get out of our armchair - why, this is the desideratum of mankind.

If any of you ... have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

All progress is experimental.