Top 6 Quotes by William Alexander Percy

With us, when you speak of ‘the river,’ though there be many, you mean always the same one, the great river, the shifting, unappeasable god of the country, feared and loved the Mississippi.

With us, when you speak of ‘the river,’ though there be many, you mean always the same one, the great river, the shifting, unappeasable god of the country, feared and loved the Mississippi.

William Alexander Percy

Country, Mean, Rivers

William Alexander Percy (1973). “Lanterns on the Levee; Recollections of a Planter's Son”, p.4, LSU Press

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

Teacher, Pride, Justice

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

Nice, Good Man, Important

William Alexander Percy (1973). “Lanterns on the Levee; Recollections of a Planter's Son”, p.286, LSU Press

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

Stars, Voice, Silence

William Alexander Percy (1944). “The collected poems of 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

Important, Tables, Remember

William Alexander Percy (1973). “Lanterns on the Levee; Recollections of a Planter's Son”, p.83, LSU Press