It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.

The age of the book is almost gone.

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.

When a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world.

Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity, do not easily resume life.

The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light.

To be a European is to try to negotiate morally, intellectually and existentially the opposing statements and praxis of the city of Socrates and the city of Isaiah.