We are here for experience, and experience is a preparation to know the Truth when we meet it.

Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience of every age and nation has proved it and we must in a great measure, change the constitution of man, before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the presumptive truth of these maxims can succeed.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

Very often, all the activity of the human mind is directed not in revealing the truth, but in hiding the truth.

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.