"I think that a society cannot live without a certain number of irrational beliefs. They are protected from criticism and analysis because they are irrational."

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the habit of generalizing from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public eye. Nothing, for example can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite people fond of dancing and light wines.

— Kate Douglas Wiggin