Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.

In America nature is autocratic, saying, "I am not arguing, I am telling you.

The American feels too rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no longer knows what he is free from. Neither does he know where he is not free; he does not recognize his native autocrats when he sees them.

The richest and fullest lives attempt to achieve an inner balance between three realms: work, love and play.

Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.

In the evaluation of the dominant moods of any historical period it is important to hold fast to the fact that there are always islands of self-sufficient order — on farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters — where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives: as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.

Adolescents need freedom to choose, but not so much freedom that they cannot, in fact, make a choice.