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.

By the time I was 9, I had the conviction that everybody in the world was an artist except plumbers or people who delivered groceries.

Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing it as a handicap

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

If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.

It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence.

[T]hat is the triumph of history - truth absolute is not at hand; the original with which to match the copy does not exist.