Commitment is a word invented in our abstract modernity to signify the absence of any real motives in the soul for moral dedication.

The real community of man, in the midst of all the self-contradictory simulacra of community, is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers, that is, in principle, of all men to the extent they desire to know. But in fact this includes only a few, the true friends, as Plato was to Aristotle at the very moment they were disagreeing about the nature of the good.

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

The substance of my being has been informed by the books I learned to care for.

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

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

[A]ny notion of the serious life of leisure, as well as men's taste and capacity to live it, had disappeared. Leisure became entertainment.