the independence of the artist is one of the great safeguards of the freedom of the human spirit.

An educated man should know everything about something, and something about everything.

Beautiful forms and compositions are not made by chance, nor can they ever, in any material, be made at small expense.

History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was to know the beginning only.

Democracy, like the human organism, carries within it the seed of its own destruction.

Am I not a man and brother?

Without the imaginative insight which goes with creative literature, history cannot be intelligibly written.

A nation does not create the historians it deserves; the historians are far more likely to create the nation.

International politics, by and large, are a depressing study.

historical research of the truly scholastic kind is not connected with human beings at all. It is a pure study, like higher mathematics.

We have more to learn today from the spectacle of a great man at a great moment than from any number of monographs on ancient wage levels.

I think the biggest achievement of my life is that I followed my heart when I knew what it wanted, and had faith in destiny when I didn't know what it held.

Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.

Character and intelligence are the poles you talent spins on, displaying your gifts.

You are the people who are shaping a better world. One of the secrets of inner peace is the practice of compassion.

I love to play different roles. That's just the kind of actor I am.

When I was younger, I was one of the few girls in the neighborhood who could break dance. That's kind of my local, ghetto-celebrity claim to fame.

the smell of lilacs crept poignantly into the room like a remembered spring.

But there's a bigger trend I'm seeing: people who used to enjoy blogging their lives are now moving to Twitter.

You have a right to have a feather duster. If anyone breaks in, you can make sure they're really clean as they're robbing your house.

My high school was a private school where you went to an Ivy League. That's just what was expected of you and nothing less. So I grew up never being okay with a 'B' because a 'B' was not good enough.