Behind those thick glasses (of TR's) was a man who did not blink.

John Hay on Lincoln: "He always worked with things as they were, while never relinquishing the desire to make them better.

John Hay indicates that dealing with people directly as a holder of political office "requires a stronger heart and a more obedient nervous system than I possess.

Good luck belongs to those who know how and are not afraid." John Hay to President Theodore Roosevelt

John Hay points to our our history of getting lost in suffering when, "so close together were pain and antidote.

I like to introduce myself, because THEN I can get in all the facts." The usually self-deprecating John Hay on the ironic formality of signing his own commission as Secretary of State.

He had no desire to grandstand for his country or himself.

If he could be hard on kings and cabinets, he was invariably kind to his colleagues.

The Admiral so regrets failure, he cannot THINK of success.

In this slipshod age, we need object lessons in language and thought. – Edith Wharton on an address by John Hay

Because we have only one (life) we go about blundering along him nervous haste.

Death was a lens that would reveal things as they really were: what was important would assume its true importance what was unimportant would recede into the shadows.

Sophie knew about power animals, everyone did...Sophie thought she might be a cat, she liked cats a lot.

I give myself the kindness and forgiveness I would show others.

The species and the genus are always the work of nature [i.e. specially created]; the variety mostly that of circumstance; the class and the order are the work of nature and art.

Keep the focus of your life in the here and now.

I was more comfortable somehow in a European Tour setting. I have never really felt comfortable in the States and therefore I have never won a 72-hole event there.

But it's cool working with female directors because I'm a girl, so you do relate to them more. You can talk to them about other stuff like clothes and all that.

The point I am making is that in the more primitive forms of society the individual is merely a unit; in more developed forms of society he is an independent personality.

Do you know how many houses all of the nonprofits have built? No more than 5,000 in five years. Do you know how many we lost? 200,000.

... even when we find not what we seek, we find something as well worth seeking as what we missed.