If quantitatively the American achievement is impressive, qualitatively it is somewhat less satisfying.

Perhaps as good a classification as any of the main types is that of the three lusts distinguished by traditional Christianity - the lust of knowledge, the lust of sensation, and the lust of power.

Yet Aristotle's excellence of substance, so far from being associated with the grand style, is associated with something that at times comes perilously near jargon.

A democracy, the realistic observer is forced to conclude, is likely to be idealistic in its feelings about itself, but imperialistic about its practice.

We may affirm, then, that the main drift of the later Renaissance was away from a humanism that favored a free expansion toward a humanism that was in the highest degree disciplinary and selective.

According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication.

It is well to open one's mind but only as a preliminary to closing it ... for the supreme act of judgment and selection.