The difference between a gun and a tree is a difference of tempo. The tree explodes every spring.

The natural object is always the adequate symbol.

Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.

A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a people in the process of losing grip on its empire and on itself.

America, my country, is almost a continent and hardly yet a nation.

The only history that matters is the history we know.

Better mendacities Than the classics in paraphrase! Some quick to arm, some for adventure, some from fear of weakness, some from fear of censure, some for love of slaughter, in imagination, learning later . . . some in fear, learning love of slaughter; Died some, pro patria, non "dulce" non "et decor" . walked eye-deep in hell believing in old men's lies, the unbelieving came home, home to a lie.