But the quiet grows and grows. Beautifully and unbearably.

Facts are ventriloquist’s dummies. Sitting on a wise man’s knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.

It isn’t only art that is incompatible with happiness, it’s also science. Science is dangerous, we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled.

Generalized intelligence and mental alertness are the most powerful enemies of dictatorship and at the same time the basic conditions of effective democracy.

The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything

And what strange voices they have! Sometimes like the complaining of small children; sometimes like the noise of lambs.

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.