Professional intellectuals are the voice of a culture and are, therefore, its leaders, its integrators and its bodyguards.

Hank, this is great." "Yes." He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own greatness, knowing that it is understood.

Only the man who extols the purity of love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.

It is not fools that I seek to address.

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection, and the base of a moral existence.

Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.