As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world.
When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.
If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.
Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.
A person’s heart withers if it does not answer another heart.
But what happens when her beauty is torn from her like a cover from a book? Will he care to read her then, although her pages speak of nothing but love for him?
Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between man and woman. As good? It is life itself.
Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.
Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.
Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.
I am comforted by life’s stability, by earth’s unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.
We need to restore the full meaning of that old word, duty. It is the other side of rights.
None but the ignorant can be bored by life. To the lovers of learning, life is pure adventure shared with adventurers.
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.
When men destroy their old gods they will find new ones to take their place.
Can such stiff and formal moldings as words capture the spirit-essence of love?
To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession.
To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.