To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.

I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge.

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.

From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots.

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.

I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge.

A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.