In a whirlwind world, independent languor becomes a virtue, and meditation engenders a finer art than any nervousness.

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness. I, the unloving, say life should be lovely. I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

They tried to get me – I got them first!

You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them.

This is the sin against the Holy Ghost: – To speak of bloody power as right divine, And call on God to guard each vile chief’s house, And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine.

Oh, I have walked in Kansas Through many a harvest field, And piled the sheaves of glory there And down the wild rows reeled: Each sheaf a little yellow sun, A heap of hot-rayed gold; Each binder like Creation’s hand To mold suns, as of old.

Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.

Change the fabric of your own soul and your own visions, and you change all.

The only thing that a man may do that is new, is to write himself on human hearts.

How can we help students to understand that the tragedy of life is not death; the tragedy is to die with commitments undefined and convictions undeclared and service unfulfilled?