The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.

When we hate a person, with an intimate, imaginative, human hatred, we enter into his mind, or sympathize -- any strong interest will arouse the imagination and create some sort of sympathy.

Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God.

There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point.

The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles.

The actual God of many Americans... is simply the current of American life.

One of the great reasons for the popularity of strikes is that they give the suppressed self a sense of power. For once the human tool knows itself a man, able to stand up and speak a word or strike a blow.