Society and the World

Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is great.

Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.

If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay—in solid cash— the tribute which philistinism owes to culture, the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.

For neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone.

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

A noble aim, Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed, In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.

Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

Humility is often only a feigned submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride.

You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones. You desire to erect a very high building? Think first of the foundation of humility.

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!

All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.

To be a hero, one must give an order to oneself.

Habit, n . A shackle for the free.

Ability is not something to be saved, like money, in the hope that you can draw interest on it. The interest comes from the spending. Unused ability, like unused muscles, will atrophy.

Ability is not something to be saved, like money, in the hope that you can draw interest on it. The interest comes from the spending. Unused ability, like unused muscles, will atrophy.

A special ability means a heavy expenditure of energy in a particular direction, with a consequent drain from some other side of life.

There are many rare abilities in the world which Fortune never brings to light.

Ability and achievement are bona fides no one dares question, no matter how unconventional the man who presents them.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study.