“The only history that matters is the history we know.”

Technique is the test of sincerity.

Until you know who has lent what to whom, you know nothing whatever of politics, you know nothing whatever of history, you know nothing of international wrangles.

Use no word that under stress of emotion you could not actually say.

The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.

Every great change is simple.

What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.

Wars are made to make debt.

A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression.

There is natural ignorance and there is artificial ignorance. I should say at the present moment the artificial ignorance is about eighty-five per cent.

If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time, food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates.

If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.

With one day’s reading a man may have the key in his hands.

And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass.

Glance is the enemy of vision.

I know I could be an astronomer of this swooning.

A man who knows that he lives in sin against God will not be inclined to come daily into the presence of God.

I know it aches, how your heart it breaks. You can only take so much. Walk on.

All known living bodies are sharply divided into two special kingdoms, based upon the essential differences which distinguish animals from plants, and in spite of what has been said, I am convinced that these two kingdoms do not really merge into one another at any point.

Neither can oath nor promise bind any such people to obey and maintain tyrants against God and against his truth known.

All are seeing God always. But they do not know it.

To find that Bahá’í young people, each and all, are known throughout the world for their intellectual attainmen

Put your trust in Allah and not in anyone other than Him, because it is known that He alone is the Helper.