Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak
Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
"This man loved me!" then rise and trip away.
     --Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
          in The Works of Walter Savage Landor, Volume II. London: Edward
          Moxon, 1853, poem No.LXIX, p.626

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
    The bliss of growth.
    The glory of action.
    The splendor of achievement.
For yesterday is but a dream.
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore to this day!
     --Kalidasa (IVth century CE)
          (translated from Sanskrit)
          this is probably the first quote I collected and saved, after
          hearing adventurer John Goddard (1924-2013) use it in a lecture
          at my High School c.1962

He who knows, doubts;
He who knows not, believes.
The philosopher is the pessimist;
The fool is the optimist.
The dreamer is stoned;
The tyrant is applauded --
Thus it is in life.
The youth fears that he will regret;
The old man regrets he feared.
The maiden dreams of the godlike lover;
The matron finds him -- Death.
Humanity has its cities
Where men go to live -- but die;
Nature has its deserts
Where men go to die -- but live;
Life is a paradox.
     --Arthur Flakoll (1897-1987)
          published in Anthony Wons, Editor. Tony's Scrap Book: 1932-33 Edition.
          Chicago: Reilly & Lee Company, 1932, p.52

        The man who wants to write Good English will, ultimately, write good
        English, and his work will have the supreme merit of being rare.

        So this mighty Alma Mater of Oxford does well not to teach the
        preservation of unsplit infinitives. She teaches you how to teach
        yourself, and that is all, and all is everything, and there is
        nothing more.
     --Frederick Rolfe [Baron Corvo](1860-1913)
          Letter to unknown friend, quoted in A.J.A. Symons. The Quest for Corvo. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1955, p.173

Knowledge may be gained from books; but the love of knowledge is
transmitted only by personal contact. No one has deserved better of the
republic than the unknown teacher.
     --Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)
          Phi Beta Kappa address delivered at the College of William and Mary,
          Saturday, 27 November 1926; reprinted in Journal of Chemical Education,
          7(2), February 1930, p.348

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!
     --Rudyard Kipling [Joseph Rudyard Kipling](1865-1936)
          Rewards and Fairies. Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911

Hurry the baby as fast as you can,
Hurry him, worry him, make him a man.
Off with his baby clothes, get him in pants,
Feed him on brain foods and make him advance.
Hustle him, soon as he's able to walk,
Into a grammar school; cram him with talk.
Fill his poor head full of figures and facts,
Keep on a-jamming them in till it cracks.
Once boys grew up at a rational rate,
Now we develop a man while you wait,
Rush him through college, compel him to grab
Of every known subject a dip and a dab.
Get him in business and after the cash,
All by the time he can grow a mustache.
Let him forget he was ever a boy,
Make gold his god and its jingle his joy.
Keep him a-hustling and clear out of breath,
Until he wins -- nervous prostration and death.
     --Nixon Waterman (1859-1944)

T.V. is the place where the pursuit of happiness
has become the pursuit of trivia
Where toothpaste and cars have become sex objects
Where imagination is sucked out of children
by a cathode ray nipple
T.V. is the only wet nurse
that would create a cripple

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
     --Michael Franti (born 1966)
          "Television, the Drug of the Nation", from the Disposable Heroes
          of Hiphoprisy album, Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury. 1992
          portions heard over end credits of The Comic Strip Presents . . .,
          TV series, "Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase", 13 May 1993

Tell me why you are crying my son,
I know you're frightened like everyone.
Is it the thunder in the distance you fear?
Will it help if I stay very near?
I am here.

Chorus:
And if you take my hand my son,
All will be well when the day is done.
And if you take my hand my son,
All will be well when the day is done.
Day is done, Day is done.
Day is done, Day is done.

Do you ask why I'm sighing my son?
You shall inherit what mankind has done.
In a world filled with sorrow and woe,
If you ask me why this is so,
I really don't know.

Chorus.

Tell me why you are smiling, my son,
Is there a secret you can tell everyone?
Do you know more than men who are wise?
Can you see what we all must disguise
Through your loving eyes?

Chorus.
     --Peter Yarrow (born 1938)
          member of the group Peter, Paul and Mary (1960s-1970s)
          from the album Peter, Paul and Mommy, 1969

Build me a son, oh, Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is
weak and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid. One who will be
proud and unbending in defeat but humble and gentle in victory.

A son whose wishbone will not be where his backbone should be; a son who
will know that to know himself, is the foundation stone of all true knowledge.

Rear him, I pray, not in the paths of ease and comfort but under the
stress and spur of difficulties and challenges. Here let him learn
to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clean, whose goal will be high.
A son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men.
One who will learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep. One who will
reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of
humor so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too
seriously; a touch of humility, so that he may always remember the
simplicity of true greatness; the open mind of true wisdom;
the meekness of true strength.

Then, I, his father, will dare in the sacred recesses of my own heart
to whisper, "I have not lived in vain".
     --Anonymous
          as published in Anthony Wons, Editor. Tony's Scrap Book: 1932-33 Edition.
          Chicago: Reilly & Lee Company, 1932, p.45
          usually credited to Gen. Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) as a prayer
          written for his son, Arthur IV; MacArthur often quoted it in his speeches,
          including a famous one on 12 May 1962, when he addressed the corps of
          cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York,
          a speech in which he modified the "Prayer" to describe the
          attributes of the ideal soldier
          (keytlaw.com/f-4/general-macarthurs-duty-honor-country-speech/)

I have traveled the land.
I have seen the world.
I have heard it all.

The questions of my childhood,
I have answered.

The things I have dreamed of,
I have done.

But when I look
into the eyes of an Elder,
I have not done enough.
     --Lincoln 'Ch'igin' Tritt (1946-2012)
          Chief of the Gwich'in Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government
          Fairbanks, Alaska
          1993; Poster in Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitors Center, Fairbanks, Alaska

          Forms of this quote also have been attributed to Mark Twain;
          Rory Cochrane; Anon.; The Butthole Surfers ("Sweet Loaf"); and
          others. It was mentioned in The League of Gentlemen,
          Series 3 (2001), Episode 2 ("The One-Armed Man is King").
         

              Similar sentiments:
         

              Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
              it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
              --Sydney Smith (1771-1845)
         

              The follies which a man regrets most in his life, are those
              which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.
                  --Helen Rowland (1875-1950)
         

              Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common-sense, and discover,
              when it is too late, that the only things one never regrets are
              one's mistakes.
                  --Oscar Wilde [Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde](1854-1900)
                      The Picture of Dorian Gray. first published in
                      Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, July 1890; revised edition
                      London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1891, from Chapter 3, spoken by Lord Henry
                      Wotton; also found in Epigrams - Phrases and Philosophies for
                      the Use of the Young. New York: Lamb Publishing Co., 1909, p.39
         

              To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development.
                  --Oscar Wilde [Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde](1854-1900)
                      De Profundis, 1897, Epistle to 'Bosie' [Lord Alfred Douglas]
                      written while Wilde was in Reading Gaol, published posthumously by
                      Robert Ross in 1905
         

              Any experience is better than no experience.
                  --Chrissie Hynde (born 1951)
                      member of the rock band The Pretenders, stated as her motto in her
                      memoir, Reckless: My Life as a Pretender. New York: Doubleday,
                      2015, Chapter 12
         

              'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
                  --Alfred Lord Tennyson [Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS](1809-1892)
                  "In Memoriam A.H.H.", aka "The Way of the Soul", 1849
         

              I'd rather have something to forget, than nothing to remember.
                  --Joey Martin [Joey Marie Martin Feek](1975-2016) and Rory Feek (born 1965)
                      "Nothing to Remember", from the album Can You Duet, 2015

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Here at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide Welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
     --Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
          written in 1883 to aid the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of
          Liberty (which opened in New York Harbor in 1886), then unused until 1903,
          when it was engraved in bronze and placed inside the statue's pedestal

Be careful with that smile
for it seeps into your eyes
and love, innocent but not naïve,
pours over me
in a waterfall of whimsey
so I am drenched in tenderness

No, don't you be careful
but rather I shall be
lest I drown
in yearning for possession
of a waterfall
which can never be owned
but, by falling, is
     --June Goodwin (born mid-XXth century)

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my
right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity to
develop whatever talents God gave me . . . not
security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen,
humbled and dulled by having the state look after
me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream
and to build; to fail and to succeed. I refuse to
barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges
of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of
fulfillment to the stable calm of utopia. I will not
trade freedom for beneficience nor my dignity for a
handout. I will never cower before any earthly
master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to
stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act
myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to
face the world boldly and say, - - - "This, with
God's help, I have done!" All this is what it means
to be an American.
     --Dean Alfange (1897-1989)

The rule of law is critical in our society. It's the great equalizer,
because in America everybody is equal before the law. We must never
allow the end to justify the means where the law is concerned.
     --George Mitchell [George John Mitchell Jr](born 1933)
          United States Senator (D-Maine), 1980-1995
          statement during the United States Congress's Iran-Contra hearings,
          13 July 1987, in response to the testimony of Col. Oliver North,
          reported in The Christian Science Monitor, Volume 79 Number 161,
          15 July 1987

Since 1945 -- it's taken for granted that manipulating the masses,
secret service operations, the restriction of public liberties, and the
complete sovereignty of a wide array of police forces were appropriate
ways to ensure democracy, freedom and civilization. [p.86] . . .

Governing has never been anything other than postponing by a thousand
subterfuges the moment when the crowd will string you up, and every act
of government is nothing but a way of not losing control of the population.
[p.96] . . .

"Terrorist threats," "natural disasters," "virus warnings,"
"social movements" and "urban violence" are, for society's
managers, so many moments of instability where they reinforce their power,
by the selection of those who please them and the elimination of those
who make things difficult. [p.119]
     --The Invisible Committee
          L'insurrection qui vient [The Coming Insurrection].
          Paris: Editions La Fabrique/Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007/2009,
          pp.13,86,96,119

A foolish hermit closed his doors and said
    "I'll live a Godly life untouched by sin."
Alas! Who builds a wall about himself
    Shuts out much more of God than he shuts in.
     --James C. Lindberg (born late XIXth century)
          in Adeline M. Jenney, Editor. Prairie Poets: An Anthology of Verse of the
          South Dakota State Poetry Society, 1927-1949. Minneapolis: Lund Press, 1949
          [credited as "J.C. Lindberg " in Anthony Wons. Tony's Scrap
          Book, 1932-33 Edition. Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1932, p.36]

Loving people means summoning them forth
    with the loudest and most insistent of calls;
it means stirring up in them
        a mute and hidden being
        who can't help leaping at the sound of our voice --
    a being so new
        that even those who carried him didn't know him,
        and yet so authentic
        that they can't fail to recognize him
    once they discover him.

All love includes fatherhood and motherhood.
    To love someone is to bid him to live,
        invite him to grow.
Since people don't have the courage to mature
    unless someone has faith in them,
We have to reach those we meet
    at the level where they stopped developing,
        where they were given up as hopeless,
            and so withdrew into
            themselves
        and began to secrete
            a protective shell
        because they thought they were alone
            and no one cared.
They have to feel they're loved very deeply
        and very boldly
    before they dare appear humble and kind,
        affectionate, sincere
            and vulnerable.
     --Louis Evely (1910-1985)
          That Man is You. Ramsey NJ: Paulist Press, 1964

The man I am prefers the light
The deeds well brought to pass.
The boy I was made friends with night
Where mystery still was.

We dwell as one yet rarely meet
And when we meet oppose
Boy dreams, so often indiscreet
To man deeds won in prose.

We find our union makes for gain:
A vigor that resolves
Work into joy and peace from strain,
True love from lesser loves.
     --T. Morris Longstreth [Thomas Morris Longstreth](1886-1975)

Grant that I may not
criticize my neighbor
until I have walked a mile
in his moccasins.
     --Native American prayer

Who walks with Beauty has no need of fear:
The sun and moon and stars keep pace with him;
Invisible hands restore the ruined year,
And time itself grows beautifully dim.
One hill will keep the footprints of the moon
That came and went a hushed and secret hour;
One star at dusk will yield the lasting boon:
Remembered beauty's white, immortal flower.

Who takes of Beauty wine and daily bread,
Will know no lack when bitter years are lean;
The brimming cup is by, the feast is spread;
The sun and moon and stars his eyes have seen,
Are for his hunger and the thirst he slakes:
The wine of Beauty and the bread he breaks.
     --David Morton (1886-1957)
          in Ships in Harbour. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1921, p.56

Alt solo:

O Mensch! Gib Acht!
Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?
'Ich schlief, ich schlief --,
aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht: --
Die Welt ist tief,
und tiefer als der Tag gedacht.
Tief ist ihr Weh -- ,
Lust -- tiefer noch als Herzeleid.
Weh spricht: Vergeh!
Doch all' Lust will Ewigkeit -- ,
  -- will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit!'

O Man! Take heed!
What does the deep midnight say?
'I slept, I slept!
I have awakened from a deep dream.
The world is deep,
and deeper than the day remembers.
Deep is its suffering.
Joy is deeper yet than heartache!
Suffering says: Begone!
All joys want eternity,
want deep, deep eternity!'
     --Friedrich Nietzsche [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche](1844-1900)
          Also Sprach Zarathustra [Thus Spoke Zarathustra].
          Chemnitz: Verlag von Ernst Schmeitzner, 1883-1885, IV:79(12),
          "Noch einmal" ["Once Again", also known as "Midnight Song"],
          which Nietzsche also uses in Zarathustra III:59(3), part of
          "The Second Dance Song"; above as set by Gustav Mahler
          (1860-1911), Symphony III (completed in 1896), Fourth Movement,
          Sehr langsam. Miserioso; English translation by Robert Cushman

Alt solo

O Röschen rot,
Der Mensch liegt in größter Not,
Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein,
Je lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein,
Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg,
Da kam ein Engelein und wollt mich abweisen,
Ach nein! Ich ließ mich nicht abweisen.
Ich bin von Gott, ich will wieder zu Gott!
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben,
wird leuchten mir bis in das ewig selig Leben.

Oh red rose!
Man lies in deepest need,
Man lies in deepest pain.
Yes, I would rather be in heaven!
I came upon a broad pathway:
An angel came and wanted to send me away.
Ah no! I would not be sent away!
I am from God and will return to God.
The dear God will give me a light,
Will light me to eternal blessed life!
     --German folk poem
          Des Knaben Wunderhorn [The Youth's Magic Horn],
          Zweiter Teil [Part Two], Munchen: Winkler Verlag, 1806/1984, p.297
          Fourth Movement, Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht, from Gustav Mahler
          (1860-1911), Symphony II (1895); English translation by
          Deryck Cooke (1919-1976)

Oh that I had the wings of a dove
  to fly away and be at rest!
I should escape far away
    and find a refuge in the wilderness.
     --Psalm LV:1-7, New English Bible
          An alternate translation of this passage was set to music by
          Felix Mendelssohn [Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy](1809-1847)
          in his often-recorded anthem "Hear My Prayer",
          perhaps the earliest and most famous recording being the 1927 HMV recording
          by Ernest Lough with the Temple Church Choir

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you
    cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows
    are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He
    bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also
    the bow that is stable.
     --Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
          The Prophet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923, pp.17-18

I pray that I may let my child live his own life,
and not the one I wish I had lived. Therefore,
guard me against burdening him with doing what
I failed to do.

Help me to see his missteps today in perspective
against the long road he must go, and grant me
the grace of patience with his slow pace.

Give me the wisdom of knowing when to smile
at the small mischiefs of his age and when to
give him the haven of firmness against the impulses
which he fears and cannot master.

Help me to hear the anguish in his heart through
the din of angry words or across the gulf of
brooding silence, and having heard, give me the
grace to bridge the gap between us with
understanding warmth.

I pray that I may raise my voice more in joy at
what he is, than vexation at what he has done; so
that each day he may grow in sureness of himself.

Help me to hold him with a warmth that will give
him friendliness toward others; then give me
the fortitude to free him to go strongly on his way.
     --Dr Marion B. Durfee (fl. mid-XXth century)
          published in part in Saturday Evening Post, Volume 244 Issue 3, September 1972, p.137
          many variations of this "Prayer" can be found on the Web,
          though there seems to be no definitive, original version available;
          author was medical director of the Pasadena (California) Child Guidance
          Clinic from the late 1940s to the early 1960s

variants:

If I am not for me, who will be?
But if I am only for myself, what am I?
    --Hillel

If I am not me, who am I?

My views . . . are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection.
. . . To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but
not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the
only sense in which He wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his
doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every
human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.
    (Letter to Dr Benjamin Rush, 21 April 1803)

Among the sayings and discourses imputed to [Jesus] by his biographers,
I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the
most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so
much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture. . . .
Of this band of dupes and impostors, [St] Paul was the . . . first
corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus.
    (Letter to W. Short, 1820)
     --Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
          Third president of the United States of America
          Jefferson here is giving perspective to his somewhat negative reputation
          among some Christian believers of his time and ours, as reflected in
          the often-quoted statement (virtually always without noting an original
          source), that "The Christian God is cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust."

O great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds. and whose breath gives
life to ail the world, hear me! I am small and weak; I need your strength
and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the
red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may
understand the things you have taught my people. Let me learn the
lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. I seek strength, not
to be greater than my friend, but to fight my greatest enemy -- myself.
Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, may my spirit come to you
without shame.
     --Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota

Oh, love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.
     --William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
          "The Young Man's Song", from Responsibilities and Other Poems. London/New York: Macmillan Company, 1919

Had I the heavens embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
     --William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
          No.36 in The Wind Among the Reeds. New York: J. Lane, The Bodley
          Head, 1899

I have to live with myself and so
I want to be fit for myself to know.
I want to be able as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye.
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I've done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself
And fool myself as I come and go
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man I really am,
I don't want to dress myself in a sham.
I want to go out with my head erect
I want to deserve all men's respect;
But here in the struggle for fame and pelf
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to look at myself and know
That I'm bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself and so,
Whatever happens I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.
     --Edgar A. Guest [Edgar Albert Guest](1881-1959)
          in Collected Verse of Edgar A. Guest. Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1934, p.724

You will observe that virgins do not bear children, and that
    dead men are not resurrected.
You will read in the newspapers of wars and disasters, but
    they will report miracles with impatience.
You will be distressed, you will not wish to repudiate your
    commitment,
You will not wish to disappoint your parents, you will suffer
    deep troubling of the soul,
You will cry out like David before you, my God, my God, why
    hast Thou forsaken me?
Do not hastily concede this territory, do not retreat immediately.
Pass over the slender bridges, pick your road quickly through
    the marshes,
Observe the frail planks left by your predecessors, the
    stones gained only by leaping.
Press on to the higher ground, to the great hills and the
    mountains
From whose heights men survey the eternal country, and the
    city that has no need of moon or sun.
     --Alan Paton (1903-1988)
          written in 1950 for the confirmation of his son, Jonathan

There's something strange about it, but fathers seem to feel
From sons a fond affection is something to conceal.
They stoop and kiss the daughter, while near them stands the son,
Though she perhaps is happy, and he the longing one.
They pet the little woman, and pass the little man,
Who wants to tell a trouble or share a boyish plan.
And yet the purest picture of love without alloy
Is when a man encircles the shoulders of his boy.

To him you seem a hero . . . to be a hero, too,
Requires a close communion between your boy and you.
He needs a hand to steady, he needs a word to cheer
Perhaps in greater measure than all the others here.
A mother's love is holy, a mother's love is long,
But oh a dad's affection can keep a boy so strong.
Temptations lie around him, temptations that destroy,
So let your arms enircle the shoulders of your boy.
     --Douglas Malloch (1877-1938)

We are men in the making.
We are small, but tomorrow we will move the world.
We will be true to the things of today, and the great things will
    follow, as surely as the sun crosses the sky.
We will keep clean, we will be honest and loyal, because there are
    those who trust us.
We will prepare for the tasks ahead.
We will study patiently and faithfully. Within the walls of our
    classrooms we will weave threads of knowledge into the pattern
    of our destinies. From deep within us we will forge the faith
    that may someday shine with beauty and usefulness in the darkened
    byways of time.
Because of the skill that we capture now, a train, a ship, an airliner
    may come into being and reach safe harbor guided by hands grown strong.
    There are bridges to build, and we will build them. There are homes
    to make, and we will light their windows. There are those who suffer,
    and we will ease their sorrow. There is a God to find, and we will
    seek Him with all the power of our hearts and minds.
Like the seedling that finds root in the wind and rain, we will grow
    sturdy until our arms reach out into the skies.
We are the men of tomorrow.
     --Lt. Wilfrid Dellquest
          Mt Lowe Military Academy, Altadena, California
          "Boys' Creed" was copyrighted on 22 December 1944,
          renewed 22 January 1972

I would be true, for there are those who trust me.
I would be pure, for there are those who care.
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer.
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.

I would be friend of all, the foe, the friendless.
I would be giving, and forget the gift.
I would be humble, for I know my weakness.
I would look up, and laugh, and love, and lift.
     --Howard A. Walter [Howard Arnold Walter](1883-1918)
          1906, set to music by Joseph Y. Peek in 1911
          the text and/or the song is used in the YMCA Rag ceremony

When black people bother to spell out the answer to
that riddle -- with expectations that can only be
described as naïve -- the consistent white responses
add up to rather predictable pranks: another study of
black frustration; another conference on brotherhood;
another million-dollar crash program to tear down an
old ghetto and replace it with a new ghetto.
     --Bob Teague (born 1929)
          "Charlie Doesn't Even Know His Daily Racism is a Sick Joke"
          The New York Times Magazine, 15 September 1968

On such foundations would my judgment be made -- almost
entirely on appearance and personality because, being
so young, it would never occur to me that my pretty teacher
or nice man also had to be proficient, and that
my future growth depended almost entirely on how
seriously they regarded their responsibilities or how
thoroughly they planned for me. No, if I thought of it at
all, I would be certain that they know everything that they
need to know -- and even more! I would be confident they
would do everything for me that needed to be done. You
see, I am eight years old, and grown up people never
cheat little children.

If I were a teen-ager in junior high school, I would take
a long, quiet look at you. You are neither women teachers
or men teachers. You are just teachers.
I would call my crowd together and in a tone of real concern
warn them, "Could be we're headed for trouble. We gotta
stick together". And how surprised I would be to find that
on the very first day you disarmed me so completely!
You kept me so busy! Your poise, your charm, your
dignity, your tremendous ability -- your quiet assurance,
your control of the situation, your infectious
good humor -- I forgot you were supposed to be my enemy.
I did not recognize your weapons because my own weapons
have always been so different.

If I were a teen-ager in senior high school, I would level my
look at you with my head held high. I can wait. Since
you are only a very few years older than I, it could be
that you are not really much more competent. If you can prove
your ability so completely that I cannot ignore it, I shall
give you my allegiance -- every ounce of it! If I do not
recognize my progress, or the progress of the organization
which you direct, I can ignore you completely,
and my life will be just as happy without you.
If I m a boy, I may even flirt with you, kid you along.
If I am a girl, I may bedevil you by making mooneyes
at you! But whatever I am, and however I behave, you really
matter to me only when you have commanded my respect for
your leadership and your adulthood! When this has
happened, I shall elevate you to the rank of an idol, and I
beg you not to betray my action. Will you, please, not have
feet of clay.

I shall adhere to your tastes wholeheartedly in whatever you
give me to do. Your judgment will be superior to that of
any other, even to that of my parents. I shall remember
you through all of my life because you have provided my first
real experience of aesthetic exaltation -- my first realization
that there is something in the world much bigger than I have ever
known, and because you have opened up this world to me -- a
world of beauty, of taste, of discrimination, of tremendous
satisfaction -- because you have thus turned me toward the
way of emotional maturity, I shall never forget you.
     --Oleta Albertson Benn (1904-1991)
          speaking to a convention of new music teachers in 1954
          (references to music edited)