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

We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration.

To say that most of us today are purely expansive is only another way of saying that most of us continue to be more concerned with the quantity than with the quality of our democracy.

The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.

A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself spiritually the underdog.

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

Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful.