There are some who esteem that it is a naivety to believe that a moral regeneration may be possible ("soit possible", Fr.); now, if this was not the case, it would not be worth the trouble that humanity continue to vegetate without aim.
My patriotism is not an exclusive thing. It is all embracing. The conception of my patriotism is nothing if it is not always, in every case, without exception, consistent with the broadest good of humanity at large.
Eratosthenes was the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world. Aristotle had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples. But Erathosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation.
If a man, before he passed from one stage to another, could know his future life in full detail, he would have nothing to live for. It is the same with the life of humanity. If it had a programme of the life which awaited it before entering a new stage, it would be the surest sign that it was not living, nor advancing, but simply rotating in the same place.
But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to bea sect or scion.... It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.
I have never been any place where I was not first invited. And upon invitation, if I feel that there is potential for making some contribution to humanity, I will comply in spite of being tired.
But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day.