The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.

Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.

It was not necessarily the best of times in America when Catholics and Protestants were suspicious of and hated one another; but at least they were taking their beliefs seriously, and the more or less satisfactory accommodations they worked out were not simply the result of apathy about the state of their souls.

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidest and most pernicious illusion.

It may well be that a societys greatest madness seems normal to itself.

Error is indeed our enemy, but it alone points to the truth and therefore deserves our respectful treatment.

Most of all I admire Mozart's capacity to be both deep and rational, a combination often said to be impossible.