A person whose desires and impulses are his own - are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture - is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character.

The habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings.

The prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hinderances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement.

A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.

As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.