Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.

There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.

In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.

Time sanctifies everything; even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.