William Alexander Percy Quotes & Sayings

To the mind that could dream and shape our beaconed universe, what is injustice to us may be unfathomable tenderness, and our horror only loveliness misunderstood. — William Alexander Percy

And would it not be proud romance Falling in some obscure advance, To rise, a poppy field of France? — William Alexander Percy

I have a need of silence and of stars.
Too much is said too loudly. I am dazed.
The silken sound of whirled infinity
Is lost in voices shouting to be heard ... — William Alexander Percy

The good die when they should live, the evil live when they should die; heroes perish and cowards escape; noble efforts do not succeed because they are noble, and wickedness is consumed in its own nature. Looking at truth is not at first a heartening experience--it becomes so, if at all, only with time, with infinite patience, and with the luck of a little personal happiness. — William Alexander Percy

As with all great teachers, his curriculum was an insignificant part of what he communicated. From him you didn't learn a subject, but a life ... Tolerance and justice, fearlessness and pride, reverence and pity, are learned in a course on long division if the teacher has those qualities ... — William Alexander Percy

They ask little, for they know it is little they will receive for all their asking, but what little is so dear, as it always is to the autumn-hearted who know life is pitiful and infinitely sweet. — William Alexander Percy

It is a very nice world-that is, if you remember that while morals are all-important between the Lord and His creatures, what counts between one creature and another is good manners. — William Alexander Percy

I suspect anyway that the important things we learn we never remember because they become a part of us, we absorb them ... we don't absorb multiplication tables. — William Alexander Percy