I have lived long enough to be battered by the realities of life, and not too long to be downed by them.
John Mason BrownI am as content to die for God's eternal truth on the scaffold as in any other way.
John Mason BrownShe knows what is the best purpose of education: not to be frightened by the best but to treat it as part of daily life.
John Mason BrownGod spare me sclerosis of the curiosity, for the curiosity which craves to keep us informed about the small things no less than the large is the mainspring, the dynamo, the jet propulsion of all complete living.
John Mason BrownI, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.
John Mason BrownThe comic book is the marijuana of the nursery, the bane of the bassinet, the horror of the home, the curse of the kids and a threat to the future.
John Mason BrownIt is in the hard, hard rockpile labor of seeking to win, hold, or deserve a reader's interest that the pleasant agony of writing again comes in.
John Mason BrownPart of the American myth is that people who are handed the skin of a dead sheep at graduating time think that it will keep their minds alive forever.
John Mason BrownA good conversationalist is not one who remembers what was said, but says what someone wants to remember.
John Mason BrownNo one is worthy of a good home here or in heaven that is not willing to be in peril for a good cause.
John Mason BrownNowhere are prejudices more mistaken for truth, passion for reason and invective for documentation than in politics.
John Mason BrownMost people spend most of their days doing what they do not want to do in order to earn the right, at times, to do what they may desire.
John Mason BrownNo man, with a man's heart in him gets far on his way without some bitter, soul-searching disappointment. Happy is he who is brave enough to push on to another stage of the journey.
John Mason BrownThe more I observed Washington, the more frequently I visited it, and the more people I interviewed there, the more I understood how prophetic L'Enfant was when he laid it out as a city that goes around in circles.
John Mason BrownWhat a man is is the basis owhat he dreams and thinks, accepts and rejects, feels and perceives.
John Mason BrownSo much of TV seems to be chewing gum for the eyes.... TV desperately needs more self-reliance and pride in the medium.
John Mason BrownFriendship should be a private pleasure, not a public boast. I loathe those braggarts who are forever trying to invest themselves with importance by calling important people by their first names in or out of print. Such first-naming for effect makes me cringe.
John Mason BrownSomething deathless and dangerous in the world sweeps past you...It is something fearful and ominous, something turbulent and to be dreaded, which distends the drama to include the life of nations as well as of men. It is an ageless warning.
John Mason BrownWhat happiness is, no person can say for another. But no one, I am convinced, can be happy who lives only for himself. The joy of living comes from immersion in something that we know to be bigger, better, more enduring and worthier than we are.
John Mason Brown