Wayfaring

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the other familiar furniture of economic development... But we are coming to realize, I think, that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.

Very often when I am introduced to women, I think, “What is she really like behind this disguise which she wears?” And very often I discover that she is pleasant enough, and probably would expand and glow if she received enough affection.

Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.

I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m begging you, with tears in my eyes, if you fuck with me, I will kill you all.

A prayer, it seems to me, implies a promise as well as a request; at the highest level, prayer not only is a supplication for strength and guidance, but also becomes an affirmation of life and thus a reverent praise of God.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views on men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Everything that divides men, everything that specifies, separates or pens them, is a sin against humanity.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is bitterest.