... one does people the best service by giving them some elevating work to do and thus indirectly elevating them.

The sole function of education...[is] to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the school, as the outstanding organ for the people's education, must serve that end exclusively.

The greatest knowledge a person can possess is the address of the local library.

Nothing happens til something moves.

What is essential in the life of a man of my kind is what he thinks and how he thinks, and not what he does or suffers.

If the workers of this world, men and women, decide not to manufacture and transport ammunition, it would end war for all time. We must do that. Dedicate our lives to drying up the source of war; ammunition factories.

An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.