We can reckon the cost of misdirected emotions by the price which the past has paid for them. We know the full significance of that irresponsible sym… - Agnes Repplier

The sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience. 'The will,' says Francis Thompson, 'is the lynch-pin of the faculties.' We stand or fall by its strength or its infirmity. Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue. Parental legislation for the benefit of the weak leaves them as weak as ever ... They may go to heaven in leading-strings, but they cannot conquer Apollyon on the way.

People who pin their faith to a catchword never feel the necessity of understanding anything.

[W]e ... know very well that we never learn unless we like our lesson, and never behave ourselves unless inspired by precept and example. The history of every nation is the heritage of its sons and daughters; and the story of its struggles, sufferings, misdeeds, and glorious atonements is the story that keeps alive in all our hearts that sentiment of patriotism, without which we are speeding swiftly on our path to national corruption and decay.