Americans cannot realize how many chances for mental improvement they lose by their inveterate habit of keeping six conversations when there are twelve in the room.

The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Ideas are the root of creation.

The object of reflection is invariably the discovery of something satisfying to the mind which was not there at the beginning of the search.

A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciousness varying with readers.

Reading, to most people, means an ashamed way of killing time disguised under a dignified name

You can believe in God without believing in immortality, but it is hard to see how anyone can believe in immortality and not believe in God.

Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.

Life is a succession of lessons enforced by immediate reward, or, oftener, by immediate chastisement.

Don't get caught staring at the moon while the sun is rising. Yesterday's problem should never become today's concern.

I curtsied. 'Thank you, Mr. Stansbury. And I apologize for my lack of grace.'He bowed. 'Never apologize for being courageous, Miss Withersby.

If you follow the light of the world, you will never walk in darkness.

The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.

I love music, singing, and playing piano (though I'm not very good). And I adore musical theater.

In health care today, we spend most of the dollars - in terms of treating disease - in the last two years of a person's life.

Ideally, you would live in an area that is not necessarily in the middle of the country, out in the woods, because you can isolate yourself there and get stuck in your own thoughts.

So, no more running. I aim to misbehave.

The sixties were a time when ordinary people could do extraordinary things . . . !

To know there is a choice is to have to make the choice: change or stay: river or rock.