Experience has taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain much more ignorant of the general state either of the public mind, or of the active and instructed part of it, than a recluse who reads the newspapers need be.

I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions …

The practical reformer has continually to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by powerful and widely-spread feelings, or to question the …

I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme, was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment.

There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, 'Ah, it's those damn liberals,' and a whole group of liberals saying, 'It's all those damn conservatives'... …

That's what the problem is with the Internet, this great escape that we have, everything automatically becomes fact!

The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused. Newspapers, magazines, and circulating libraries have made mankind wiser. Titles and dist…