Books are precious things, but more than that, they are the strong backbone of civilization. They are the thread upon which it all hangs, and they can save us when all else is lost.
The one law that does not change is that everything changes, and the hardship I was bearing today was only a breath away from the pleasures I would have tomorrow, and those pleasures would be all the richer because of the memories of this I was enduring.
Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is violence they want and neither truth nor freedom.
One thing has always been true: That book or that person who can give me an idea or a new slant on an old idea is my friend.
Even those who fancy themselves the most progressive will fight against other kinds of progress, for each of us is convinced that our way is the best way.
The best of all things is to learn. Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever.
A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.
Revenge could steal a man’s life until there was nothing left but emptiness.
Hate would destroy him who hated.
Education is everywhere, prompting one to think, to consider, to remember.
In the United States we have concentrated tremendous sums of money on the educational plant, seemingly with the idea that the right number of buildings will turn out the right number of graduates. Yet the teachers who actually instruct the future citizens of our country are more often than not miserably paid. If in the future we find ourselves with a lot of fourth-rate citizens, we have only ourselves to blame.
Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.
The terrorist lives for terror, not for the change he tells himself he wants. He masks his desire to kill and destroy behind the curtain of a cause. It is destruction he wants, not creation.
Up to a point a man’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.
There are many ways of fighting. Many a man or woman has waged a good war for truth, honor, and freedom, who did not shed blood in the process. Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is the violence they want and neither truth nor freedom.
You can make laws against weapons but they will be observed only by those who don’t intend to use them anyway. The lawless can always smuggle or steal or even make a gun. By refusing to wear a gun you allow the criminal to operate with impunity.
Browsing through the shelves in bookstores or libraries, I was completely happy.
Because a man plays a king superbly well does not mean that he would make a good king.
Laws are made to free people, not to bind them – if they are the proper laws. They tell each of us what he may do without transgressing on the equal liberty of any other man.
I’ve noticed... that whenever a man is asked to be realistic he is being asked to betray something in which he believes. It is the favorite argument of those who believe that only the end matters, not the means.