Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses power of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.

Social evolution is a resultant of the interaction of two wholly distinct factors: the individual ... bearing all the power of initiative and origination in his hands; and, second, the social environment with its power of adopting or rejecting both him and his gifts. Both factors are essential to change. The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.

Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience

The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.

All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.