Classical music is a special taste like Greek language or pre-Columbian archeology, not a common culture of reciprocal communication and psychological shorthand.

There is no real teacher who in practise does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech.

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.

The expectation of substantive unity between natural science and social science has faded.... Gone is the cosmic intention of placing man in the universe.

Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music.

Once the law is broken with impunity, each man regains the right to any means he deems proper or necessary in order to defend himself against the new tyrant, the one who can break the law.

We need history, not to tell us what happened or to explain the past, but to make the past alive so that it can explain us and make a future possible.