Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing it as a handicap.

Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice.

Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti.

If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real.

The test and the use of man’s education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind.

A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth.

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game – and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.

The intellectuals’ chief cause of anguish are one another’s works.

Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.

Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy.

Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing it as a handicap.

In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principal.

Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.

It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence.

An artist has every right – one may even say a duty – to exhibit his productions as prominently as he can.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.

Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in a memorable form – or else it is not art.

If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.

Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.

Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions.

The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers.