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.

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

[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.

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.

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

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

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