“Reality, it cannot be repeated too often, varies with every one of us.”

Source: A Letter to a Noble Lord (1796), p. 20

Tout ce qu'on dit de trop est fade et rebutant.
Canto I, l. 61
The Art of Poetry (1674)

Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (2012)

Cited in: Peter Coad (1992, p. 152)
The Timeless Way of Building (1979)

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)
Context: It can safely be assumed that self-interest will always place sufficient emphasis on the business side of newspapers, so that they do not need any outside encouragement for that part of their activities. Important, however, as this factor is, it is not the main element which appeals to the American people. It is only those who do not understand our people, who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction. No newspaper can be a success which fails to appeal to that element of our national life. It is in this direction that the public press can lend its strongest support to our Government. I could not truly criticize the vast importance of the counting room, but my ultimate faith I would place in the high idealism of the editorial room of the American newspaper.

Speech in Berlin (30 January 1936), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s

The Making of Americans (1925)

Source: The Neverending Story

The Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and American Democracy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966) p. 91