America's education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.
The passion of rescue reveals the highest dynamic of the human soul.
There is more to us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less.
There exists within everyone a grand passion, an outlandish thirst for adventure, a desire to live boldly and vividly through the journey of life.
I regard it as the foremost task of education to insure the survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self denial, and above all, compassion
There are three ways of trying to win the young. There is persuasion, there is compulsion, and there is attraction. You can preach at them: that is a hook without a worm. You can say, You must volunteer, and that is of the devil. You can tell them, You are needed. That appeal hardly ever fails.
We are all better than we know. If only we can be brought to realise this, we may never be prepared to settle for anything less
The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders.
Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and peaceful life; love of truth keeps him in suspense. A man who loves truth respects the highest law of his being.
Capitalism started out with a noble and high motive, but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against.
I fell in love with social work, and that was my undoing as a poet.