“In recollecting Schumpeter, it is hard to tear oneself away from the exotic manner, the dubious politics, the carefully crafted image, the hidden self-doubts, the convoluted life story, the complicated relations to three wives and several non-wives.”

“Unfortunately, the process of gaining money in [a man’s] life usually meant alienating the wife in his life. Sometimes this leads to a legal divorce, but more often to a psychological divorce. Which is why a survey of doctors’ wives reported in Medical/Mrs. Found the doctors’ wives harboring hostility that was ‘stunning to behold.’ Yet the wives remained married to the doctors. Why? More than anything else, the wives said, they wanted security from marriage… the men, then, were often prostitutes to an illusion of emotional security. At least their wives had the reality of economic security.”

“Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.”

“The gift of oneself to God is always the gift of oneself to all; to give oneself to God − though it were hidden from all − is to give oneself to man, for this gift of self has a sacrificial value of an incalculable radiance.”

“I fear many working men will tell Mrs. Besant that the greatest hindrance to their political and social activity is the apathy of their wives.”

“Self-consciousness is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself.”

“I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queen's on thrones, without self-respect and peace.”

“I smiled back, the importance of manners, my mother always said, is inversely related to how inclined one is to use them, or, in other words, sometimes politeness is all that stands between oneself and madness.”

“the great lack of parity between husbands and wives has always been spawned by the disproportionate degree of self-sacrifice that women are willing to make on behalf of those they love.”

“I avoid all political complications,” said Cloche, with a severe expression. “Of whatever stripe. I only wish that political complications would similarly avoid me, and my work.”