American literature has never been content to be just one among the many literatures of the Western World. It has always aspired to be the literature not only of a new continent but of a New World.

If man limits himself to a satisfied animal existence, and asks from life only what such an existence can give, the higher values of life at once disappear.

For humanism also appeals to man as man. It seeks to liberate the universal qualities of human nature from the narrow limitations of blood and soil and class and to create a common language and a common culture in which men can realize their common humanity.

The sublimated idealism of the Enlightenment, the spirit of the League of Nations and of the United Nations Charter have not proved strong enough to control the aggressive dynamism of nationalism.

The Church as a divine society possess an internal principle of life which is capable of assimilating the most diverse materials and imprinting her own image upon them.

The moment that the state came into conflict with the higher power, the moment that it set itself up as an end in itself, it became identified with Augustine's earthly city and lost all claims to a higher sanction than the law of force and self-interest. Without justice, what is a great kingdom but a great robbery, magnum latrocinium?

The chief safeguard of personal freedom in a democratic society is the anarchy and disorder of capitalist individualism.