“At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life the thorns should never be plucked from his roses.”

“The educator must above all understand how to wait; to reckon all effects in the light of the future, not of the present.”

“The simplest formula for the new conception of morality, which is beginning to be opposed to the moral dogma still esteemed by all society, but especially by the women, might be summed up in these words: Love is moral even without legal marriage, but marriage is immoral without love.”

“For thousands of years, poetry has been picturing love as a mysterious and tragic power. But when anyone says the same thing in plain prose, and adds that life would be colourless and poor without the great passions, then this is called immorality!”

“Education must be based on the certainty that faults cannot be atoned for or blotted out, but must always have their consequences. At the same time, there is the other certainty that, through progressive evolution, by slow adaptation to the conditions of environment, they may be transformed.”

“Education can give you a skill, but a liberal education can give you dignity.”

“At present, the most effective way of preventing war would be for statesmen to direct politics so as to support a sound nationalism. This leads to concordance between people of kindred race and languages, whereas the conquest and coercion of people of different race and language inevitably lead to new wars.”

“The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.”

“When one paints an ideal, one does not need to limit one's imagination.”

“The ever clearer consciousness that love can dispense with marriage, yet marriage cannot dispense with love, is already partially recognized by modern society, by the facility of divorce.”

“Love is moral even without legal marriage, but marriage is immoral without love.”