The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So we are more tender towards children and old people than to those who are in the pri… - Samuel Butler

Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal country.

Whether the universe is really a paying concern, or whether it is an inflated bubble that must burst sooner or later, this is another matter. If people were to demand cash payment in irrefragable certainty for everything that they have taken hitherto as paper money on the credit of the bank of public opinion, is there money enough behind it all to stand so great a drain even on so great a reserve?

If we are asked what is the most essential characteristic that underlies this word, the word itself will guide us to gentleness, to absence of such things as brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, and generally to consideration for other people.