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.

Every age is blind to its own worst madness.

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.

The self is the modern substitute for the soul.

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

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 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.