What Can Destroy This Country?
The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich theory of life.
— Theodore Roosevelt
On Intelligence
The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.
— John Holt, in How Children Fail
On Respect
If you’re only concerned with being liked, you will most likely miss the opportunity to be respected.
— Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., in Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office
You Cannot Keep a Secret
The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.
— Saint Jerome
On Life and Death
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
— Isaac Asimov
Don’t Take Life Too Seriously
If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.
— Herodotus
On Education
An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.
— Anatole France
On Friendship
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
— George Washington
Personal Change Is Not Always Obvious to Us
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
— Nelson Mandela