The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.

Bargaining is essential to the life of the world; but nobody has ever claimed that it is an ennobling process.

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.

Erudition, like a bloodhound, is a charming thing when held firmly in leash, but it is not so attractive when turned loose upon a defenseless and unerudite public.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

It is claimed that the United States gets the cleanest and purest tea in the market, and certainly it is too good to warrant the nervous apprehension which strains and dilutes it into nothingness. The English do not strain their tea in the fervid fashion we do. They like to see a few leaves dawdling about the cup. They like to know what they are drinking.

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.