“It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.”

That is the truth about man – that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don’t understand.

The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses.

The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.

We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.

Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

Justice requires that we carefully weigh rights and privileges and assure that each member of a community receives his due share. Love does not weigh rights and privileges too carefully because it prompts each to bear the burden of the other.

Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.

The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

The only cure for vanity is laughter. And the only fault that’s laughable is vanity.

I feel like, growing up, I haven’t had a lot of room for error – I don’t have room to make mistakes. You need to make mistakes to grow and learn, but I’m just a little different because the world is watching me, every single thing I do.

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.

Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience.

Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this.

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.