The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.

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.

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.

Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.

There are two things that can stop us from committing an evil act

In cities no one notices specific dying. Dying is a quality of the air. It's everywhere and nowhere.

No matter in what land we may dwell the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ makes us brothers and sisters, interested in each other, eager to understand and know each other.

'Tis never for their wisdom that one loves the wisest, or for their wit that one loves the wittiest; 'tis for benevolence, and virtue, and honest fondness, one loves people...

The world is a magnificent place. What are you going to do with it?

I'm a Frisbeetarian. We worship frisbees. We believe when you die your soul goes up on the roof and you can't get it down.

The pipeline would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast. It'll be the biggest underground structure leading into the U.S. Then people in Mexico said, 'Eh . . . second biggest.'

You can't allow other people to define your purpose or your destiny.

Law should seek far more than mere reconciliation; it should be one of the great creative forces of our social life.

Are we not to pity and supply the poor, though they have no relation to us? No relation? That cannot be. The Gospel styles them all our brethren.