“In education, as in life, we are formed by our atmosphere without knowing it. We store up unconsciously spiritual tissue of whose nature and importance we are unaware. Later we come to know and appreciate the influences that have formed us. For the mind is like a garden. Seeds are scattered on the soil and most are lost, but some lie inert till the outside influence of sun and moisture wakes them to activity. That is a parable of education. It scatters ideas and information on the surface of the mind; much perishes forgotten, but some seeds lie dormant till the quickening power of experience brings them to life. Hence the value of a practice too much neglected in modern education, the habit of learning great literature by heart and so storing up a treasure which later life may enable us to use.”

Sir Richard Livingstone

“Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by many years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life is those hundreds of self-defining seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character.”

Senator Dan Coats

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.