Sinclair Lewis

"Our contemporary writers are mostly concerned with the surface of modern life, not its depths."

"To believe in something that is not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives is the only way we can leave the future open."

"The businessman is the one man who can never afford to relax his vigilance."

"A friendship that can end never really began."

"The most dangerous thing in the world is sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

"Democracy is the one form of government where the people have a right to complain."

"The patience of the creator is the strength of creation itself."

"Every man is entitled to his opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts."

"The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that we do."

"A man cannot be an optimist unless he believes that all things are possible."

"Time is the substance from which we are made, and time is the very thing we cannot save."

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their thinking."

"In America, that's where I belong. Here the sun shines down and warms the earth, and life is good."

"We are not free unless we are free from want, free from fear, and free to pursue happiness as we understand it."

"The unexamined life is not worth living, and the unwritten thought is not worth having."

"A man may be born, but in order to be a man he must be taught."

"Leadership is not about being in charge; it is about taking care of those in your charge."

"The measure of a man is not how much he has accumulated, but how much he has contributed."

"Hope is the dream of the waking; faith is the certainty of the dreamer."

"Beauty is a form of genius, and it is higher than genius because it does not need to be explained."

"Death is not the greatest loss in life; the greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live."

"The grateful heart is a magnet for all that is good in life."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

"In every village there is a teller of tales who tells the same tales year after year."

"The most destructive force in the world is a small mind with great conviction."

"Happiness is not achievement; it is the absence of desire unfulfilled."

"A truly wise person never gives advice, but they do share their experience."

"The power to love and the power to forgive are the two greatest powers in the world."

"A man who cannot relax is a man who cannot truly work."

"The greatest inheritance we can give our children is not money, but wonder."