Walter Bagehot: “If he were taken away, it would be most difficult to make any other choice, and that difficulty keeps him where he is.”

The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

I do not think I put this too high when I say that a most important if not the most important object of early legislation was the enforcement of LUCKY rites.

He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them.

Now it is not conceivable that a race of beings with valuable instincts supporting their existence and supplying their wants would need these simple tools.