The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it read more

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.

Almost everyone who has read history in a more than casual manner knows that when the great figure of God read more

Almost everyone who has read history in a more than casual manner knows that when the great figure of God appears in a controversy, the shooting cannot be far off.

The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to read more

The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages.

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows read more

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous...The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it read more

A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaningless of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring upon them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves- and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.

[They say] "We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it." You poor fools! read more

[They say] "We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it." You poor fools! God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so.

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough read more

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. - Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley.

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

The tapestry of history has no point at which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible.

The tapestry of history has no point at which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible.