Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation read more

Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication is the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, "it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves.".

A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man read more

A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large.

The present is saturated with the past and pregnant with the future.

The present is saturated with the past and pregnant with the future.

To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.

To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.

...it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in read more

...it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.

The Darwinian theory is in principle capable of explaining life. No other theory that has ever been suggested is in read more

The Darwinian theory is in principle capable of explaining life. No other theory that has ever been suggested is in principle capable of explaining life.

The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to read more

The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages.

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is read more

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.