What I never could make some of these friends see was that I had no quarrel with corporate business so long as it played fair. It was the unfairness … - Ida Tarbell

We are given to ignoring not only the past of our solutions, their status when we took them over, but the variety of relationships they must meet, satisfy. They must sink or swim in a stream where a multitude of human experiences, prejudices, ambitions, ideals meet and clash, throw one another back, mingle, make that all-powerful current which is public opinion the trend which swallows, digests, or rejects what we give it. It is our indifference to or ignorance of the multiplicity of human elements in the society we seek to benefit that is responsible for the sinking outright of many of our fine plans. There are certain exhibits of the eighty years I have lived which particularly impress me. Perhaps the first of these is the cyclical character of man's nature and activities. If I separate my eighty years-1857 to 1937-into four generations, examine them, compare my findings, I find startling similarities in essentials. Take the effort to create, distribute, and use wealth. How alike are the ups and downs that have marked that effort!

One of the most revealing things about a country is the way it takes the threat of war.

One must be an artist before he can create-that I knew.