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As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
The duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow it but to amend it.