It Is Not Permissible To Lie Merely

No Convention Gets To Be A Convention At All Except By Grace Of A Lot Of Clever And Powerful People First Inventing It, And Then Imposing It On Others. You Can Be Pretty Sure, If You Are Strictly Conventional, That You Are Following Genius--a Long Way Off. And Unless You Are A Genius Yourself, That Is A Good Thing To Do.

Educational Legislation Nowadays Is Largely In The Hands Of Illiterate People, And The Illiterate Will Take Good Care That Their Illiteracy Is Not Made A Reproach On Them.

[science] Has Challenged The Super-eminence Of Religion; It Has Turned All Philosophy Out Of Doors Except That Which Clings To Its Skirts; It Has Thrown Contempt On All Learning That Does Not Depend On It; And It Has Bribed The Skeptics By Giving Us Immense Material Comforts.

... It Is A Great Mistake To Confuse Conventionality With Simplicity ... It Takes A Good Deal Of Intelligence And A Great Many Inhibitions To Follow A Social Code.

... There Are Some Who, Believing That All Is For The Best In The Best Of Possible Worlds, And That To-morrow Is Necessarily Better Than To-day, May Think That If Culture Is A Good Thing We Shall Infallibly Be Found To Have More Of It That We Had A Generation Since; And That If We Can Be Shown Not To Have More Of It, It Can Be Shown Not To Be Worth Seeking.