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[T]he difficulty of explaining even a boy's thought entirely in terms of his wishes is that on such large questions as these he always has wishes on both sides. Any conception of reality a sane mind can admit must favor some of its wishes and frustrate others.

But throughout this inquiry we must be careful never to adopt prematurely a moral or evaluating attitude. The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize. We must do nothing of the sort about the pleasures. The reality is too complicated.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Every culture has a concept of murder, distinguishing this from execution, killing in war, and other "justifiable homicides." The notion of incest and other regulation upon sexual behavior, the prohibition upon untruth under defined circumstances, of restitution and reciprocity, of mutual obligation between parents and children — these and many other moral concepts are altogether universal.