No nation ever rises higher than its women.

it makes a great difference to a speaker whether he has something to say, or has to say something.

War is the antithesis of all our teaching. It breaks all the commandments; it makes rich men poor, and strong men weak. It makes well men sick, and by it living men are changed to dead men.

The middle years of life come on like thunder.

War proves nothing. To kill a man does not prove that he was in the wrong. Bloodletting cannot change men's spirits, neither can the evil of men's thoughts be driven out by blows. If I go to my neighbor's house, and break her furniture, and smash her pictures, and bind her children captive, it does not prove that I am fitter to live than she - yet according to ethics of nations it does. I have conquered her and she must pay me for my trouble; and her house and all that is left in it belongs to my heirs and successors, forever. That is war!

Children are great idealists, until the stupidity of their elders puts out the fires of the aspirations.

I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place.