A clash of doctrine is not a disaster, it is an opportunity.

A race preserves its vigor so long as it harbors a real contrast between what has been and what may be; and so long as it is nerved by the vigor to adventure beyond the safeties of the past. Without adventure civilization is in full decay.

The difference between ancients and moderns is that the ancients asked what have we experienced, and moderns asked what can we experience.

Our rate of progress is such that an individual human being, of ordinary length of life, will be called on to face novel situations which find no parallel in his past. The fixed person, for the fixed duties, who, in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger.

The factor in human life provocative of a noble discontent is the gradual emergence of a sense of criticism, founded upon appreciation of beauty, and of intellectual distinction, and of duty.

Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.