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.

Shakespeare . . . If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him [if you can].

Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.

Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.

If one lived for ever the joys of life would inevitably in the end lose their savour. As it is, they remain perennially fresh.

He will see himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will permit; realizing the brevity and minuteness of human life, he will realize also that in individual minds is concentrated whatever of value the known universe contains.

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.