History is worth reading when it tells us truly what the attitude toward life was in the past.

help that is not positively necessary is a hindrance to a growing organism.

the most elementary experience of life proves that the effects of compulsion last exactly as long as the physical or moral club can be applied.

What a fearfully distracting, perplexing and heart-searching business it is to live.

The actions of a human being, even of fifteen months of age, may not be without significance to a sympathetic eye.

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.

Vermont tradition is based on the idea that group life should leave each person as free as possible to arrange his own life. This freedom is the only climate in which (we feel) a human being may create his own happiness. ... Character itself lies deep and secret below the surface, unknown and unknowable by others. It is the mysterious core of life, which every man or woman has to cope with alone, to live with, to conquer and put in order, or to be defeated by.