“The village of Market Blandings is one of those sleepy hamlets which modern progress has failed to touch… The church is Norman, and the intelligence of the majority of the natives palaeozoic.”

“Well, we have a major crisis because Welfarism is failing. The Christian community must begin to reestablish Christian charity. I think every church could begin as a number of black churches have done, with the people in their area or their own members relatives, friends, who are in desperate need. If every church in this country, it has been said by a statistician, could take care of three families the problem would disappear. Well, there are big churches that could take care of more than three families. And those that can take care of only one or half a family, those churches could come together and accomplish a great deal.”

“The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.”

“No study of the causes of intelligence has failed to find a substantial heritability.”

“Stories of perfect people who have never failed don't inspire me, in fact, those stories make me bored and sleepy. I'm fascinated and addicted to stories of people who have failed and risen to become the world's best, those are the real heroes. Failing doesn't define you, how you bounce back up is what makes you”

“It has become increasingly evident, at least among those who aren't currency traders or true believers in the optimality of free markets, that it would be nice if this system could calm down a touch. One option is the Tobin tax, which would impose a tax of around 0.1 percent on currency trades, and act as a kind of damper on speculation.”

“Our civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?”

“For him the best adornment of rank was acute native intelligence.”

“Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school.”

“Vision without action which fails to touch the lives of the poor is not vision, but self delusion.”