59 quotes
Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.
My Several Worlds (1954)
Yet somehow our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members.
My Several Worlds (1954)
The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.
Know Your Limits — Then Ignore Them (2000)
It is difficult not to wonder whether that combination of elements which produces a machine for labor does not create also a soul of sorts, a dull resentful metallic will, which can rebel at times.
Rosalie Maggio (1996)
The street is noisy and the men and women are not perfect in the technique of their expression as the statues are.
The Chinese Novel (1938)
Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored — it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.
What America Means to Me (1943)
What is a neglected child? He is a child not planned for, not wanted. Neglect begins, therefore, before he is born.
Children for Adoption (1964)
But nothing mattered today, neither the kindness nor the cruelty. We were in hiding for our lives because we were white.
My Several Worlds (1954)
An intelligent, energetic, educated woman cannot be kept in four walls — even satin-lined, diamond-studded walls — without discovering sooner or later that they are still a prison cell.
Perhaps this sense of unity is a source of power I find in these volumes. They speak to persons of any religion or of none. They speak for the human heart and the searching mind...
Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.
To My Daughters, With Love (1967)
I believe in human beings, but my faith is without sentimentality.
This I Believe (1951)
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.
This I Believe (1951)
With so profound a faith in the human heart and its power to grow toward the light, I find here reason and cause enough for hope and confidence in the future of mankind.
This I Believe (1951)
Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.
To My Daughters, With Love (1967)
I love people. I love my family, my children … but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.
His whole duty is only to sort life as it flows through him, and in the vast fragmentariness of time and space and event to discover essential and inherent order and rhythm and shape.
The Chinese Novel (1938)
I became mentally bifocal, and so I learned early to understand that there is no such condition in human affairs as absolute truth. There is only truth as people see it, and truth, even in fact, may be kaleidoscopic in its variety.
My Several Worlds (1954)
Story belongs to the people. They are sounder judges of it than anyone else, for their senses are unspoiled and their emotions are free.
The Chinese Novel (1938)
The waters of the genius of story gushed out as they would, however the natural rocks allowed and the trees persuaded, and only common people came and drank and found rest and pleasure.
The Chinese Novel (1938)