A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity one brings to bear on life-and-death questions, in full recognition that every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear.

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

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.

Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.

Education is the movement from darkness to light.

The artist is the most interesting of all phenomena, for he represents creativity, the definition of man.

This nation's impulse is toward the future, and tradition seems more of a shackle to it than an inspiration.