“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. There must be the will to produce a superior thing.”

“You always succeed in producing a result.”

“Jeez, for a superior intelligence, you must be just plain dumb,' he said.”

“Each day, most of the 4 billion chicken brains do what modern man's brain can't. They make eggs and chickens. Is the chicken more intelligent than man? Probably not. Therefore, something far superior to man must have made the chicken. 'Accident' is the alternative.”

“Beauty is always the result of an accident. Of a violent lapse between acquired habits and those yet to be acquired.”

“The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad.”

“Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.”

“Writing fiction is … an endless and always defeated effort to capture some quality of life without killing it.”

“A great democratic commonwealth should seek to produce and reward that individual distinction which results in the efficient performance of needed work, for such performance is of high value to the whole community. But hand in hand with this purpose must go the purpose which Abraham Lincoln designated as the “amelioration of mankind.” Only by an intelligent effort to realize this joint process of individual and social betterment can we keep our democracy sound.”

“Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage.”