I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.

The intellectuals' chief cause of anguish are one another's works.

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?

Take a portion of wit, And fashion it fit, Like a needle, with point and with eye: A point that can wound, An eye to look round, And at folly or vice let it fly

Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice.

It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.

The educated man had throughout the ages found a way to covert passionate activity into silent and motionless pleasure. He can sit still in a room and not perish.