For what is there more hideous than avarice, more brutal than lust, more contemptible than cowardice, more base than stupidity and folly?

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

School curriculum, learning activities--all educational pursuits--should be characterized by and should lead to a sense and experience of wholeness. (p25)

If on any given day you don't cry from rejoicing in the beauty of the world, then you have not lived that day.

He told us to believe, not beg.

Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library.  This book I had again and again perused with delight.

Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth.

There is no hope of joy except in human relations.

It's almost therapeutic driving there and driving back (to North Carolina), with the time you get to think about things as well as create checklists.

When we talk about the future, we often talk about it as damage and limitation exercise. That needn't be the case - it could be a Renaissance.

I am deeply disturbed by the senseless violence instigated by some leaders in pursuit of their personal political agenda.

Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine. But do I? Am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago.