In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

The true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals; claiming nothing for themselves but what they as freely concede to everyone else; regarding command of any kind as an exceptional neccessity, and in all cases a temporary one.

He who cannot by his labor suffice for his own support has no claim to the privilege of helping himself to the money of others. By becoming dependent on the remaining members of the community for actual subsistence, he abdicates his claim to equal rights for them I other respects.

A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.