“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain.

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

Memory is the scribe of the soul

Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form, but with regard to their mode of life.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else.

The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man

Love exists in itself, not relying on owning or being owned.

We’re constantly re-evaluating the potential for life. We’re finding it where we didn’t think it could exist, such as volcanic vents and other extreme conditions like under arctic ice. We’re finding life in these incredibly harsh and dynamic conditions, so we’re having to re-evaluate our own ideas of what’s possible on this planet alone.

United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.

A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.

Maturity, is knowing what your limitations are, Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.