Books are in no hurry. An act of creation is in no hurry; it reads us, it privileges us infinitely.

To shoot a man because one disagrees with his interpretation of Darwin or Hegel is a sinister tribute to the supremacy of ideas in human affairs -- but a tribute nevertheless.

Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.

I have students who are now in chairs in five continents. They invite me to their inaugurals. A tremendous reward.

The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.

Fischer does not merely outplay opponents; he leaves them bodily and mentally glutted. Fisher himself speaks of the exultant instant in which he feels the 'ego of the other player crumbling.'

To understand is to decipher. To hear significance is to translate.