This-this was what made life: a moment of quiet, the water falling in the fountain, the girl's voice. . . a moment of captured beauty. Those who are truly wise will never permit such moments to escape.

Some say opportunity knocks only once, that is not true. Opportunity knocks all the time, but you have to be ready for it. If the chance comes, you must have the equipment to take advantage of it.

Much of command is the ability to take command.

Books are the building blocks of civilization and a people without books are a people without history, a people with no story older than the tales of the oldest man or woman.

No matter how much I admire our schools, I know that no university exists that can provide an education; what a university can provide is an outline, to give the learner a direction and guidance. The rest one has to do for oneself.

When I was a small boy I often went to the woods to lie on the grass in the shade. Somehow I had come to believe the earth could give me wisdom, but it did not. Yet I learned a little about animals and learned it is not always brave to make a stand. It is often foolish. There is a time for courage and a time for flight.

Ancestry is most important to those who have done nothing themselves.