Authentic values are those by which a life can be lived, which can form a people that produces great deeds and thoughts.

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

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.

Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.

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.

We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.

The students [of the 60's] substituted conspicuous compassion for their parents' conspicuous consumption.