“Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.”

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.

Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.

All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.

The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.

There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.

All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil.

Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.

Cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasable, a speedy prospect of universal happiness,

A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying “Why?

Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.

Cultivated people should be superior to any consideration so sordid as a mercenary interest.

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.

By consciously meditating upon spiritual truths and cultivating personal integrity, one need never fear negative circumstances.

We Russians have assigned ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personalities, and when we’re barely past childhood, we set to work to cultivate them, those unfortunate personalities.

Two forces are succesfully influencing the education of a cultivated man: art and science. Both are united in the book.