“The world will never be safe for democracy—it is a dangerous trade”

“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.”

“In the modern world, we are primarily confronted with the extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals because they have not tried the old. Men have not gotten tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. Men have never wearied of political justice; they have wearied of waiting for it.”

“Daybreak is a never-ending glory; getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance.”

“A man with no sword can never be beaten in swordmanship.”

“It is well sometimes to half understand a poem in the same manner that we half understand the world.”

“But if you cannot at once laugh at a thing or believe in it, you have no business in the Middle Ages. Or in the world for that matter.”