The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.

Most persons have but a very moderate capacity of happiness. Expecting...in marriage a far greater degree of happiness than they commonly find, and knowing not that the fault is in their own scanty capability of happiness.

What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mindeness, personal dignity, even the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience.

When one's ideas are not challenged, one's ability to defend them weakens.

The idea is essentially repulsive, of a society held together only by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interest.

There is a very real evil consequent on ascribing supernatural origin to the received maxilms of morality. That origin consecrates the whole of them and protects them from being discussed or criticized.

The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.