“The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”

The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.

All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.

Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.

Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.

Far more critical than what we know or what we don’t know is what we don’t want to know.

For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.

To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can’t learn. If you have too much, you will think you don’t have to learn.

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.

Credit is like a looking-glass, which when once sullied by a breath, may be wiped clear again; but if once cracked can never be repaired.

There is two things everybody got to find out for themselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter.

Love is the force that leaves you colorless.

The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant close contact.

True security lies not in the things one has, but in the things one can do without.

There’s no vocabulary For love within a family, love that’s lived in But not looked at, love within the light of which All else is seen, the love within which All other love finds speech. This love is silent.