The past was only my cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big.

You heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses.

You went up to be examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that matter of your nose.

The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school.

Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.

It is not that I belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.

What we get in steerage is not the refuse, but the sinew and bone of all the nations.