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 failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.

Various kinds of self-forgetting, usually accompanied by illusions and myths, make it possible to live without the intransigent facing of death-in the sense of always thinking about it and what it means for life and the things dear in life-which is characteristic of a serious life.

The sirens sing sotto voce these days, and the young already have enough wax in their ears to pass them by without danger.

The facile economic and psychological debunking of the theoretical life cannot do away with its irreducible beauties.

Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.