When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children. We should probably come considerably nearer to the true conception of things if we treated all grown-up persons, of all titles and types, with precisely that dark affection and dazed respect with which we treat the infantile limitations.

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

of being strong and brave. The strong can not be brave. Only the weak can be brave; and yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted, in time of doubt, to be strong.

He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.

When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.

the object of a new year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul.

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.