“I think honesty is the most heroic quality one can aspire to.”

“People think me a sort of Florence Nightingale, but I have no heroic qualities. I simply don’t feel very much.”

“I think that enduring, committed love between a married couple, along with raising children, is the most noble act anyone can aspire to. It is not written about very much.”

“The measure of a society is not only what it does but the quality of its aspirations.”

“Honesty is the most beautiful gift a person can give to another at the beginning of a friendship.”

“It is these undeniable qualities of human love and compassion and self-sacrifice that give me hope for the future. We are, indeed, often cruel and evil. Nobody can deny this. We gang up on each one another, we torture each other, with words as well as deeds, we fight, we kill. But we are also capable of the most noble, generous, and heroic behavior.”