“Good luck belongs to those who know how and are not afraid." John Hay to President Theodore Roosevelt”

“Behind those thick glasses (of TR's) was a man who did not blink.”

“John Hay on Lincoln: "He always worked with things as they were, while never relinquishing the desire to make them better.”

“John Hay indicates that dealing with people directly as a holder of political office "requires a stronger heart and a more obedient nervous system than I possess.”

“John Hay points to our our history of getting lost in suffering when, "so close together were pain and antidote.”

“Henry Adams observes that John Hay has the ability to take the world as a whole rather than pulling it to pieces in criticism. He also observes that, in the routine of a stressful job, this perspec...”

“If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.”

“I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prov...”

“Not everything you're good at is what you're called to do.”

“Time limits tend to turn everything predictable and mundane into a novelty.”

“Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experiencebuying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hellobecome new all over again.”

“Progress in science and technology is real, but it builds on past truths without rejecting them. Computers dont have to be re-invented in order to keep getting better; innovations expand what they ...”