“No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.”

“It's hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. Such communication has always been... one of the primary sources of progress. ”

“People change, he thought -it's truism- but how? Our life is confined to days, after all: Sunday to Monday, dusk to dawn. What great alterations can take place in someone between breakfast and lunch? Is it possible to wake up as one person and fall asleep as another?”

“Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.”

“I have learned to be a friend to myself Great improvement this indeed Such a one can never be said to be alone for know that he who is a friend to himself is a friend to all mankind”

“It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”