“The progress of human enlightenment can go no further than in picturing people not as vicious, but as mistaken.”

“Those who speak of progression but are afraid of change are self-repressed and therefore unable to reach any further than their eyes can already see.”

“Faith is the daring of the soul to go further than it can see.”

“If our well-being depends upon the interaction between events in our brains and events in the world, and there are better and worse ways to secure it, then some cultures will tend to produce lives that are more worth living than others; some political persuasions will be more enlightened than others; and some world views will be mistaken in ways that cause needless human misery.”

“An age cannot bind itself and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge , purify itself of errors, and progress in general enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, the proper destination of which lies precisely in this progress and the descendants would be fully justified in rejecting those decrees as having been made in an unwarranted and malicious manner.The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself.”

“She's vicious,' Miss Stein said. 'She's truly vicious, so she can never be happy except with new people. She corrupts people.”