The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not be many idols left to smash.

Life is an irreversible process and for that reason its future can never be a repetition of the past.

There is nothing so good for the human soul as the discovery that there are ancient and flourishing civilized societies which have somehow managed to exist for many centuries and are still in being though they have had no help from the traveler in solving their problems.

Happiness cannot be the reward of virtue; it must be the intelligible consequence of it.

The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.

What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but on pictures made by himself or given to him...

There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.