The whole world is a gigantic legacy. Imagine having to start afresh each generation: who would invent the wheel, devise the lever, construct the alp… - Sydney J. Harris

We are just beginning to learn that our same old habits, like the exploitation of nonrenewable resources, may make us at one with the auk and the dodo.

Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer — for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.

Nice things are done for our own sake, not for the sake of others. The pleasure must reside in the performance, not in the applause. Good deeds are, in a deeper psychological way, a favor to oneself. If this is not grasped, then our whole sense of personal relationships becomes warped.