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.

Education is not sermonizing to children against their instincts and pleasures, but providing a natural continuity between what they feel and what they can and should be.

Never did I think that the university was properly ministerial to the society around it. Rather I thought and think that society is ministerial to the university, and I bless a society that tolerates and supports an eternal childhood for some, a childhood whose playfulness can in turn be a blessing to society.

The spirit is at home, if not entirely satisfied, in America.

The most important function of the university in an age of reason is to protect reason from itself.

These sociologists who talk to facilely about the sacred are like a man who keeps a toothless old circus lion around the house in order to experience the thrills of the jungle.

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