dont let the old break you; let the love make you

An educator should think of a child as a gardener thinks of a plant, as something to be made to grow by having the right soil and the right amount of water. If your roses fail to bloom, it does not occur to you to whip them, but you try to find out what has been amiss in your treatment of them. ... The important thing is what the children do, and not what they do not do. And what they do, if it is to have value, must be a spontaneous expression of their own vital energy.

In detective stories . . . I alternately identify myself with the murderer and the huntsman-detective, but . . . there are those to which this vicarious outlet is too mild.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

To speak seriously: the standards of "goodness" which are generally recognized by public opinion are not those which are calculated to make the world a happier place. This is due to a variety of causes, of which the chief is tradition, and the next most powerful is the unjust power of dominant classes.

The whiter my hair becomes, the more ready people are to believe what I say.