No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.
Morality knows nothing of geographical boundaries, or distinctions of race.
Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.
Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.
The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature - a type nowhere at present existing.
The saying that beauty is but skin deep is but a skin-deep saying.
Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.
We too often forget that not only is there "a soul of goodness in things evil," but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.
Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, to strengthen the perceptions, and cultivate the tastes, to encourage this feeling and repress that, so as finally to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature—this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.
Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.
The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.
As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.
Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as parts of the phenomena of life at large. We have to deal with man as a product of evolution, with society as a product of evolution, and with moral phenomena as products of evolution.
How often misused words generate misleading thoughts!
The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.
The essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings.
Every pleasure raises the tide of life; every pain lowers the tide of life.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
Strong as it looks at the outset, State-agency perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are its first stages, private efforts daily achieve results that astound the world.
Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies — unlike the shopkeeper who promptly finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand — unlike the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a special influx of passengers; the law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements.
Evolution is definable as a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.
The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.
A clever theft was praiseworthy amongst the Spartans; and it is equally so amongst Christians, provided it be on a sufficiently large scale.
Equity knows no difference of sex. In its vocabulary the word man must be understood in a generic, and not in a specific sense.
Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity. Instead of civilization being artificial, it is part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower.
