Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.

It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.

Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.

We may complain and cavil at the anarchy which is the amateurs natural element, but in soberness we must agree that if the amateur did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.

Education in the United States is a passion and a paradox. Millions want it, and commend it, and are busy about it. At the same time they degrade it by trying to get it free of charge and free of work.

Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.

A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others,thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.