The book, like the bicycle, is a perfect form.

In a large university, there are as many deans and executive heads as there are schools and departments. Their relations to one another are intricate and periodic; in fact, "galaxy" is too loose a term: it is a planetarium of deans with the President of the University as a central sun. One can see eclipses, inner systems, and oppositions.

I once worked as a salesman and was very independent. I took orders from no one.

no subject of study is more important than reading…all other intellectual powers depend on it.

Grab a pen and put down some words - your name even - and a title: something to see, to revise, to carve, to do over in the opposite way

Democracy, to maintain itself, must repeatedly conquer every cell and corner of the nation. How many of our public institutions and private businesses, our schools, hospitals, and domestic hearths are in reality little fascist states where freedom of speech is more rigorously excluded than vermin?

Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made.