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Personal Merit Has to Beg Pardon in Society (11)

What offends a great intellect in society is the equality of rights, leading to equality of pretensions, which everyone enjoys; while at the same time, inequality of capacity means a corresponding di...

Constraint is Always Present in Society (12)

All society necessarily involves, as the first condition of its existence, mutual accommodation and restraint upon the part of its members. This means that the larger it is, the more insipid will be ...

Phylosophy and Good Society (13)

A man is not more entitled to be �received in good society�, or at least to wish to be, because he is more intelligent and cultivated. This is one of those sophisms that the vanity of intelligent peo...

Society Is Commonly Too Cheap (14)

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of th...

About Visitors (15)

I find it almost natural that we have all manner of things to criticize about visitors, and that when they leave we judge them not all that charitably; for in a way we have a right to measure them by...

Society Never Advances (16)

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; b...

Avoid Speaking of Persons (17)

Lose no time in setting before you a certain stamp of character and behaviour to observe both when by yourself and in company with others. Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necess...

Masses Prefer Illusion to Truth (18)

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduces them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easil...
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
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On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
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