Beliefs constitute the basic stratum, that which lies deepest, in the architecture of our life. By them we live, and by the same token we rarely think of them.... One may symbolize the individual life as a bank of issue. The bank lives on the credit of a gold reserve which is rarely seen, which lies at the bottom of metal coffers hidden in the vaults of the building. The most elementary caution will suggest that from time to time the effective condition of these guaranties--of these credences, one might say, that are the basis of credit--be passed in review.

Commonplaces are the tramways of intellectual transportation.

Love is exclusivity, selection.

Thinking is the desire to gain reality by means of ideas.

The individual point of view is the only point of view from which one is able to look at the world in its truth.

The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man

Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us - by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. 'To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law.'