“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”

“...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.”

“There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is a hundredth of a fraction of a false note to candor, it immediately produces dissonance, and as a result, exposure. But in flattery, even if everything is false down to the last note, it is still pleasant, and people will listen not without pleasure; with coarse pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure nevertheless.”

“Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.”

“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”