There is no more evil thing in this world than race prejudice, none at all. [...] It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty, and abomination than any other sort of error in the world.
Some positive persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last.
Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors.
A collection of errors does not make a truth: quality cannot stem from quantity – a value is not a weight. The reasons of the majority cannot be taken as good reasons.
To let them share in the highest offices is to take a risk; inevitably, their unjust standards will cause them to commit injustice, and their lack of judgement will lead them into error. On the other hand there is a risk in not giving them a share, and in their non participation, for when there are many who have no property and no honours they inevitably constitute a huge hostile element in the state. But it can still remain open to them to participate in deliberating and judging.
So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
It is too often believed that a person in his progress towards perfection passes from error to truth; that when he passes on from one thought to another, he must necessarily reject the first. But no error can lead to truth. The soul passing through its different stages goes from truth to truth, and each stage is true; it goes from lower truth to higher truth.
A well informed public opinion is essential to the growth of political and social awareness. Only he who is informed can comment intelligently on his nation's development and only by such comments can errors be corrected and progress stimulated