"The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite."

"One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them."

"Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated."

"Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism."

"Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature; but all things become so through habit."

"It is annoying to be honest to no purpose."

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."

"We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution."