We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.

Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.

The great omission in American life is solitude. . . that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incinerator of the spirit.

Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand

If a child lives with approval, he learns to live with himself.

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.