Every renaissance comes to the world with a cry, the cry of the human spirit to be free.

People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.

If my parents didn't push me and didn't support education, I probably wouldn't be here today.... Regardless of whatever they went through and how they may have been treated, they felt education was important. So, it's easier when you have the parents who support it, rather than those who don't.

We all make mistakes, as the hedgehog said as he climbed off the scrubbing brush

Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitation touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be, therein to be content.

A strenuous effort must be made to train young people to think for themselves and take independent charge of their lives.