What right have such men to represent Christianity—as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly?

what secular avocation on earth was there for a young man (whose friends could not get him an ‘appointment’) which was at once gentlemanly, lucrative, and to be followed without special knowledge?

Fred dislikes the idea going into the ministry partly because he doesn't like "feeling obligated to look serious", and he centers his doubts on "what people expect of a clergyman".

Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens.

The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.

Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.