“Man knows so little about his fellows. In his eyes all men or women act upon what he believes would motivate him if he were mad enough to do what the other man or woman is doing.”

“The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts.”

“"Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Who is he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb, but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do nothing, he can't talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes."”

“But the more he is alone with nature, the greater man and his doings bulk in the consideration of his fellow-men.”

“If man acted unkindly toward non-human beings only when he had to do so in order to avoid harm to himself—if he were as economical in his injuries to others as he would be if he had to endure them himself—the violence which to-day marks his dominion of the planet would be reduced to a mere vestige of what it is.”

“When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head—the other man's head, I mean—then that proved that his—the first fellow's—girl was a pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke his head—not his own, you know, but the other fellow's—the other fellow to the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow would only be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who—well, if he broke his head, then his girl—not the other fellow's, but the fellow who was the—Look here, if A broke B's head, then A's girl was a pretty girl; but if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a pretty girl, but B's girl was. That was their method of conducting art criticism.”

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.”

“What is the White man? What does he do?
The White man is like a human being, but he crushes all other living things under his feet.
Then why, O Ta-Kumsaw, when I look into your heart, why is it that you do not wish to hurt the White man, that you do not wish to kill the White man?
The White man doesn’t know the evil that he does. The White man doesn’t feel the peace of the land, so how can he tell the little deaths he makes? I can’t blame the White man. But I can’t let him stay. So when I make him leave this land, I won’t hate him.”

“That it does not matter what a man believes is a statement heard on every side today. … What he believes tells him what the world is for. How can men who disagree about what the world is for agree about any of the minutiae of daily conduct? The statement really means that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he does not take his beliefs seriously.”

“Some say ‘Man is what he eats’ and some say ‘A man’s thinking determines his character’. It might be even more true to say ‘A man’s life and character are governed by his breathing’! This is because a person can neither digest what he eats nor act up to his ideas unless his breathing qualifies him to do so.”