Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can any one contrive to talk of "free love"; as if love were an episode like lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave. Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he "drew an angel down" and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover; he is either a traitor or a tied man.

-What's Wrong With the World (1910)

Artificial Conflict

But the main character of these questions is that they divide people wrongly. They set up an opposition that does not exist, and so avoid, very often, the formidable opposition that does exist. The nameless and ancestral enemy that desires to eat our swords with rust and seal our eyes with an evil slumber, the primal cowardice that is older than the hills, has no way more effective than this artificial conflict for bringing about its peace, the peace of Satan that passes all understanding. It desires a false unity; and to make assurance doubly sure, it creates a false division. It sets men fighting about nothing, lest they should fight about something. This is half the secret of the political aristocracy of England.

-December 16, 1905, Daily News

"...and perhaps it is a minor matter that it has ceased to be any good to anybody."

Practical men tell us that it is useless to cry over spilt milk [...] Anyhow, in the ordinary way unspilt milk has obviously more chance of remaining pure, but spilt milk has much more chance of becoming universal. To spill it is the way to spread it [...] It is the best course for the truly modernist milkman, who cannot consent to have his sacred element confined in narrow forms and limitations, in rigid cans and restricted jugs, but wishes it to flow forth freely and without limit, like a fountain in the public streets. By merely spilling the milk, the modernist will not, perhaps, make a fountain, but he will do what is more important to a modernist, he will make a splash. He will splash the milk far and wide, so as to cover a much larger area; possibly, also, so as to cover some of the passers-by, whose attention will thus be drawn to the incident. The milk of human kindness will be much more generally recognised when it is spilt than when it is imprisoned in a can- or a creed. It will have more appeal, more advertisement value, more publicity and big business methods. In short, the milk is more obvious to everybody; and perhaps it is a minor matter that it has ceased to be any good to anybody.

-December 20, 1924, Illustrated London News

Pickwick goes through life with that god-like gullibility which is the key to all adventures. The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life. Because Pickwick is led away by Jingle, he will be led to the White Hart Inn, and see the only Weller cleaning boots in the courtyard. Because he is bamboozled by Dodson and Fogg, he will enter the prison house like a paladin, and rescue the man and the woman who have wronged him most. His soul will never starve for exploits or excitements who is wise enough to be made a fool of. He will make himself happy in the traps that have been laid for him; he will roll in their nets and sleep. All doors will fly open to him who has a mildness more defiant than mere courage. The whole is unerringly expressed in one fortunate phrase -- he will be always "taken in." To be taken in everywhere is to see the inside of everything. It is the hospitality of circumstance. With torches and trumpets, like a guest, the greenhorn is taken in by Life. And the sceptic is cast out by it.

-Charles Dickens (1906)

"The saint without humility is the devil."

The ethics of the Middle Ages were at one with the ethics of the New Testament on this important point; that they understood the idea of the Pharisee. The saint without humility is the devil [...] the devil is a saint without humility. He is as austere as any anchorite; he is as intellectual as any doctor or theologian; he is as refined as any lady abbess; he is as sexless as any virgin martyr. The one difference between him and them is that he is an egoist; an austere, refined, intellectual, virgin egoist.

-February 3, 1906, Daily News