No bloody or unbloody change of society can eradicate the evil in man: as long as there will be men, there will be malice, envy and hatred, and hence there cannot be a society which does not have to employ coercive restraint.

God's reasons for communicating with man must be subsumed under his reason for communicating to him his account of his creation of the world - and man.

If the highest things are unknowable, then the highest capacity or virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom.

The facile delusions which conceal from us our true situation all amount to this: that we are, or can be, wiser than the wisest men of the past. We are thus induced to play the part, not of attentive and docile listeners, but of impresarios and lion-tamers.

According to our social science, we can be or become wise in all matters of secondary importance, but we have to be resigned to utter ignorance in the most important respect: we cannot have any knowledge regarding the ultimate principles of our choices, i.e. regarding their soundness or unsoundness... We are then in the position of beings who are sane and sober when engaged in trivial business and who gamble like madmen when confronted with serious issues.

For try as one may to expel nature with a hayfork, it will always come back.

Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.