“...a man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.”

“The quality you most admire in a man? Courage moral and physical: 'anima'—the ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd.The quality you most admire in a woman? Courage moral and physical: “anima”—the ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd.”

“The average woman is far braver than the average man. The common kind of courage-that of the soldier who disregards the danger of death-belongs to the majority of men in the last resort. I mean that if it has to be exercised they exercise it without making a fuss about it. But when you come to moral courage it hardly exists at all among men. There is only one man in ten thousand who will brave the full violence of public opinion. Women, on the other hand, will often do it, if they are in love or to defend their children... The bravest men are those who have a good deal of woman about them.”

“One must be a great man indeed to be able to hold out even against common sense.""Or else a fool.”

“The downfall of every civilization comes, not from the moral corruption of the common man, but rather from the moral complacency of common men in high places.”

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”