Great Throughts Treasury

"They are quite different from us, and yet they are human beings! They have their customs and we have ours. Each side thinks his are the only right ones… These customs are not so important after all. It seems that the rules of life a society sets up for itself cannot be the last criterion of “good” and “bad,” “beneficial” and “harmful.”"

"Every language in the world has something beautiful and something ugly about it, for language is nothing more than the expression of the activities, thoughts, and actions of human beings. There is naturally always something to blame and something to praise."