The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary.

Freedom to speak... can be maintained only by promoting debate.

Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, find reasons afterward.

The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.

When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.

The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.

Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men.