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

Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts.

Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.

A new language always reflects a new point of view, and the gradual unconscious popularization of new words, or of old words used in new ways, is a sure sign of a profound change in people's articulation of the world.

As soon as tradition has come to be recognized as tradition, it is dead.

The importance of these [college] years for an American cannot be overestimated. They are civilization's only chance to get to him.

An education, other than purely professional or technical, can even seem to be an impediment.