Intellect has nothing to do with equality except to respect it as a sublime convention.

Above all, do not talk yourself out of good ideas by trying to expound them at haphazard meetings.

I can only think that the book is read because it deals with the difficulties of schooling, which do not change. Please note: the difficulties, not the problems. Problems are solved or disappear with the revolving times. Difficulities remain. It will always be difficult to teach well, to learn accurately; to read, write, and count readily and competently; to acquire a sense of history and start one's education or anothers.

Above all, the ability to feel the force of an argument apart from the substance it deals with is the strongest weapon against prejudice.

I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.

If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real.

One great aim of revision is to cut out. In the exuberance of composition it is natural to throw in - as one does in speaking - a number of small words that add nothing to meaning but keep up the flow and rhythm of thought. In writing, not only does this surplusage not add to meaning, it subtracts from it. Read and revise, reread and revise, keeping reading and revising until your text seems adequate to your thought.