The notion of the perfect whole, the ultimate solution in which all good things coexist, seems to me not merely unobtainable--that is a truism--but conceptually incoherent. ......Some among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.

True knowledge is knowledge of why things are as they are, and not merely what they are.

Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.

Life may be seen through many windows, none of them necessarily clear or opaque, less or more distorting than any of the others.

One must look at what impiety hates, what puts it in a rage, what it attacks always, everywhere, and with fury - that will be the truth.

The notion of the perfect whole, the ultimate solution in which all good things coexist, seems to me not merely unobtainable--that is a truism--but conceptually incoherent. ......Some among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.

Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.