“To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.”

All translation is a compromise – the effort to be literal and the effort to be idiomatic.

Now in these troubled times, even more than ever, we need an affirmation that there is goodness and beauty in the world.

My dear child, you must believe in God despite what the clergy tells you.

Young men make great mistakes in life; for one thing, they idealize love too much.

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.

There is a great deal of hard lying in the world; especially among people whose characters are above suspicion.

I am not blaming the past. … But I want the peace of God to settle on the future.

Precautions are always blamed. When successful they are said to be unnecessary.

If you don’t find a God by five o’clock this afternoon you must leave the college.

It is most important in this world to be pushing, but it is fatal to seem so.

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.

Grace is an energy; not a mere sentiment; not a mere thought of the Almighty; not even a word of the Almighty.

We can’t search or attain well being, wealth, studying, justice or kindness usually. Action is all the time particular, concrete, individualized, distinctive.

Give the clergy your sympathy; don’t give them anything else.

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.

Plato’s dialogues bear at least some similarities to the classical plays.

Don’t let failure deter you; use it as a stepping-stone and an educational experience towards making your mark on the world.

Libraries are not just for reading in, but for sociable thinking, exploring, exchanging ideas and falling in love. They were never silent.

Technology will not change that, for even in the starchiest heyday of Victorian self-improvement, libraries were intended to be meeting places of the mind, recreational as well as educational.

We forget the conditions – not only in slavery – but after slavery, when there was this purposeful locking out of African Americans from economic opportunity. Or we forget today’s incarceration rates, and educational and housing discrimination; all of these things.

An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.

Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit there from.

Bend your minds and wills to the education of the peoples and kindreds of the earth, that haply the dissensions that divide it may, through the power of the Most Great Name, be blotted out from its face, and all mankind become the upholders of one Order, and the inhabitants of one City.

Arts, crafts and sciences uplift the world of being, and are conducive to its exaltation. Knowledge is as wings to man’s life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone.