Image: Bill Murphy, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0
38 quotes
American historian, philosopher and writer (1885–1981)
“Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.”
"Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul."
on Philosophy
"Nobody loves a policeman until he needs one."
on Truth
"Sixty years ago I knew everything now I know nothing education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."
on Education
"Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory."
on Humor
"Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard."
on Wisdom
"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."
"In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order."
on Freedom
"To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy."
"Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day."
on Inspirational
"When liberty destroys order the hunger for order will destroy liberty."
"Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance."
on Knowledge
"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."
"Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years."
on Time
"Never mind your happiness do your duty."
"War does one good—it teaches people geography."
on War
"Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day."
"Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say."
"The past is not dead. Indeed, it is often not even past."
on History
"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice."
on Sustainability
"So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him."
on Human Rights
