Poetry is halfway between prose and music: it is sometimes like an intimate conversation, in words and phrases which need not be fully uttered, and sometimes like dancing and wordless music.

History is a strange experience. The world is quite small now; but history is large and deep. Sometimes you can go much farther by sitting in your own home and reading a book of history, than by getting onto a ship or an airplane and traveling a thousand miles.

The relation between parents and children is essentially based on teaching.

A very wise old teacher once said: I consider a day's teaching wasted if we do not all have one hearty laugh.

A period of high civilization is one in which thoughts fly freely from mind to mind, from one country to another-yes, from the past into the present.

Most Americans do not like poetry. We may respect it, but we do not enjoy it.

Many of the twisted minds and crippled characters in the world were made by careless parents who kept their children away from knives and fires, but put permanent scars on their souls.