The quote database

Man is but a reed, weakest in nature, but a reed which thinks.

There is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women

I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

My experience is that there is something in human nature which always makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter under what colour of skin merit is found.

I want you to make up your minds that you are going to be more nearly perfect, are going to put more manly and womanly strength into the preparation of your lessons each day, that you may be more useful.

Very many people, very many students, who otherwise would succeed, who would go through school creditably, graduating with honours, have failed to succeed because they became discouraged.

If we would be great, and good, and useful, we must pay the price. And remember that when we get down to the fundamental principles of truth, nature draws no colour line.

Our ability to make the world better depends entirely upon our ability to use every opportunity to make ourselves better.

There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights.

The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together.

Thus the Analytical Engine will possess a library of its own. Every set of cards once made will at any future time reproduce the calculations for which it was first arranged.

The whole of arithmetic now appeared within the grasp of mechanism. A vague glimpse even of an Analytical Engine at length opened out, and I pursued with enthusiasm the shadowy vision.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be

Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall hardly know me.

The spirit of personal independence in the women of to-day is sure proof that a change has come.

The inevitable trend of human life is toward higher civilization.

The brain of man is the social organ, the organ of communication. Through it flows the current of thought, whereby we are enabled to work together.

The progress of society rests upon the increasing collectivity of human labor.

What we do modifies us more than what is done to us.

To be surrounded by beautiful things has much influence upon the human creature: to make beautiful things has more.

The basic condition of human life is union; the organic social relation, the interchange of functional service, wherein the individual is most advantaged, not by his own exertions for his own goods, but by the exchange of his exertions with the exertions of others for goods produced by them together.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

The more you are and the more you do, the richer your life, the greater your joy.