The freest child is the child who is most interested in what he is doing, and at whose hand are the materials for his work or play.

A lifetime is not too long to spend in learning about the world.

Children...need most of the same things adults need--consideration, respect for their work, the knowledge that they and the things they do are taken seriously.

The child, unhampered, does not waste time.

Children learn eagerly and well when they have need of the knowledge.

Education [is] not an end in itself but [is] the first step in a progress which should continue during a lifetime.

Childhood’s work is learning, and it is in his play...that the child works at his job.

It is only in retrospect that the high points of our lives rise up, flaunting banners.

A school’s job [is] to begin education.

The most important phase of a child’s life was the beginning of it. He must be started right.

Children do not grow up all of a piece; look for the child of seven, especially to take many backward glances at the way he has come, while bounds and leaps unevenly ahead in his growth.

Promise me this. When you find yourself in need of inspiration, bypass the roses that will clamor aimlessly for attention. And focus on the souls who have actually 'lived' among the thorns.

One's own form of sensibility is not not necessarily another's. Common sense is not so common.

Racing is a great mania to which one must sacrifice everything, without reticence, without hesitation.

I don't want to pierce anything. I think it's outdated. Belly rings and all are, like, old.

On the path to love, impossibilities are resolved by turning non-love into love.

Words are so often used in the opposite sense, as a screen of diversion. It's the struggle towards truthfulness which is the same whether one is writing a poem, a novel or an argument.

Knowing others is to be clever. Knowing yourself is to be enlightened. Overcoming others requires force. Overcoming yourself requires strength.

But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for . . .

Every rabbit-nation will find its tyrant! Oppressors are the destiny of coward and submissive nations!

Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death be like autumn leaves. Rabindranath Tagore What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf.