Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.

The best defence [for a democracy, for the public good] is aggressiveness, the aggressiveness of the involved citizen. We need to reassert that slow, time-consuming, inefficient, boring process that requires our involvement; it is called 'being a citizen.' The public good is not something that you can see. It is not static. It is a process. It is the process by which democratic civilizations build themselves.

A commercial civilization is money-oriented, profit-oriented. Commercial values always tend to wrench a society free of tradition.Economics from education to public service is being reorganized on the self-destructive basis of self-interest.

If the technocratic class often invokes technology, it is because these inanimate objects can take on a trajectory of their own and so cover for the manager's inability to give leadership.

Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.

As an inclusive quality, imagination is thus our primary force for progress, whatever progress is.

The citizen's job is to be rude - to pierce the comfort of professional intercourse by boorish expressions of doubt.