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.'

We cannot put off living until we are ready.

One age cannot be completely understood if all the others are not understood. The song of history can only be sung as a whole.

The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him.

Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within.

The struggle with the past is not a hand-to-hand fight. The future overcomes it by swallowing it. If it leaves anything outside it is lost.

Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do.