The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind.

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.

Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

Equality! Where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! They cannot exist without equality of instruction.

Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period.

Moral truth, resting entirely upon the ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation and reasoning.

Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not.

... the happiness of a people is the only rational object of government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all.

Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped.

These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.

the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener as the truth itself.

The thought of being with Shay Wilder makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a butter knife

The new mythology of love was that it bent to the fashion of the day, obligated to take the shape of doves, lilies, jewels. This is a lie. Love is sometimes as passionate as war.

The greatest challenge of parenting is in the inner work it requires: the strength and confidence in believing that we are not in control of, but the answer for our children.

We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.

I have lived my life in the slipstream of experience

Conservatism cherishes tradition; innovation fetishizes novelty. They tug in different directions, the one toward the past, the other toward the future.

Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

No; he could be ruined again and again by hope, but he would never be capable of belief.

To make great art, you had to expose your soul, and some things should be left safely in the dark.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.