There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived. The stimulus, the training, the time, are all three wanting to us; or, in other words, the means and inducements are not there. Look at the poor lives we lead. It is a wonder that we are so good as we are, not that we are so bad. In looking round we are struck with the power of the organisations we see, not with their want of power. Now and then, it is true, we are conscious that there is an inferior organisation, but, in general, just the contrary.

Poetry and imagination begin life. A child will fall on its knees on the gravel walk at the sight of a pink hawthorn in full flower, when it is by itself, to p…

Women are never supposed to have any occupation of sufficient importance not to be interrupted, except 'suckling their fools '; and women themselves have accep…

The progressive world is necessarily divided into two classes - those who take the best of what there is and enjoy it - those who wish for something better and…

The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb i…

The western nations of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilization, owe little or none of …

The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential provider of elements withou…