History is a record of the incessant struggle of humanity against ignorance and oppression.

Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of birds, the mighty strains of an orchestra as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow . . . Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Glory in all the facts of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you.

Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge - broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low.

We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means we choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We elect expensive masters to do our work for us, and then blame them because they work for themselves and for their class.

I do not like the world as it is; so I am trying to make it a little more as I want it.

For my part, I wish, with Mr. Howells, that the literature of the past might be purged of all that is ugly and barbarous in it, although I should object as much as any one to having these great works weakened or falsified.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.