"It is man's consolation that the future..." - Quote by Victor Hugo

“Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available”

“There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their numbers than the greatness of a man is by his height.”

“There are moments when a rope's end, a pole, the branch of the tree, is life itself, and it is a frightful thing to see a living being lose his hold upon it, and fall like a ripe fruit.”

“Our hope is that the elementary reading of comics will lead to the joy of reading good books.”

“To me, the idea and expectation that the day is slowly and surely coming when we will be able to honestly say we are our brother's keeper and not his oppressor is very beautiful .”

“We cannot despair about mankind knowing that Mozart was a man.”

“You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.”

“The general rule is that my life is focused on the present, and very little on the past. If anything, I'm a little bit more focused toward the future.”

“The era of wild apples will soon be over. I wander through old orchards of great extent, now all gone to decay, all of native fruit which for the most part went to the cider mill. But since the temperance reform and the general introduction of grafted fruit, no wild apples, such as I see everywhere in deserted pastures, and where the woods have grown up among them, are set out. I fear that he who walks over these hills a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples.”