A cleric who loses his faith abandons his calling; a philosopher who loses his redefines his subject.

I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend, who is Czech and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmalzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ'. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music.

America was born modern; it did not have to achieve modernity, nor did it have modernity thrust upon it.

A cleric who loses his faith abandons his calling; a philosopher who loses his redefines his subject.

People are even more reluctant to admit that man explains nothing, than they were to admit that God explains nothing.

The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.

Ideas, and even the detection of errors, require more than care and caution.