“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.”

“Modesty... consists in pretending not to think better of ourselves and our belongings than of the man we are speaking to and his belongings.”

“Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality.”

“We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.”

“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”

“The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves; the skill of the experts consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so. (The proviso is essential, because measures which arouse serious resentment are seldom advantageous, whatever merits they may have otherwise.) The power of the politician, in a democracy, depends upon his adopting the opinions which seem right to the average man. It is useless to urge that politicians ought to be high-minded enough to advocate what enlightened opinion considers good, because if they do they are swept aside for others.”

“There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.”