“character is not made in a crisis- it is only exhibited”

“Character is not made by crisis. It is only exhibited.”

“Marco reported that homeless children [in Kublai Kahn's city of Daidu] were cared for and educated. While he says little about the system of education in China, we know from records of the time that Kublai Khan created thousands of public schools to provide a basic education for all children, including those of poor peasants. Until then, only the wealthy were literate. Kublai's bid at 'universal education' had never been attempted by any country on Earth. In the western world, nearly 500 years would pass before governments began to take responsibility for the public education of all children.”

“But death does not stand at the end of life, it is all through it. It is the fear of losing, the knowledge of losing that makes love tender.”

“Mike was right: the pattern of life isn't a straight line; it crosses and recrosses, drawing in and tying together other lives, as I do when I gather in the ends of my thread to make a knot.”

“I turned my face to the sky and laughed because the things you enjoy can’t hurt you.”

“I have mo prejudice against the Southern people... They are just what we would ben in their situation. If slavery did not now exits amongst them, they wld not inrtoduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up... I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. (p52)”