Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

If Washington were President now, he would have to learn our ways or lose his next election. Only fools and theorists imagine that our society can be handled with gloves or long poles. One must make one's self a part of it. If virtue won't answer our purpose, we must use vice, or our opponents will put us out of office, and this was as true in Washington's day as it is now, and always will be.

History will die if not irritated. The only service I can do to my profession is to serve as a flea.

At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the tools and models may be thrown away.

One does every day and without a second thought, what at another time would be the event of a year, perhaps of a life.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

I hate photographs abstractly, because they have given me more ideas perversely and immovably wrong, than I ever should get by imagination.