Society, by insisting on conventions, has merely insisted on certain convenient signs by which we may know that a man is considering, in daily life, the comfort of other people.

Most men have always wanted as much as they could get; and possession has always blunted the fine edge of their altruism.

The real drawback to the simple life is that it is not simple. If you are living it, you positively can do nothing else. There is not time.

Culture' means a long receptivity to things of the mind and the spirit.

Some of the men and women who will not say in so many words the thing which is not, will deliberately give a false impression. They are not the servants of truth; they are the parasites of truth.

Social distinctions concern themselves ultimately with whom you may and may not marry.

Each man's private conscience ought to be a nice little self-registering thermometer: he ought to carry his moral code incorruptibly and explicitly within himself, and not care what the world thinks. The mass of human beings, however, are not made that way; and many people have been saved from crime or sin by the simple dislike of doing things they would not like to confess.