The materialistic idealism that governs American life, that on the one hand makes a chariot of every grocery wagon, and on the other a mere hitching post of every star, lets every man lead a very enticing double life.

From the failure of the humanist tradition to participate fully or to act decisively, civilizations may perhaps crumble or perish at the hands of barbarians. But unless the humanist tradition itself in some form survives, there can really be no civilization at all.

Nominally a great age of scientific inquiry, ours has become an age of superstition about the infallibility of science; of almost mystical faith in its non-mystical methods; above all-which perhaps most explains the expert's sovereignty-of external verities; of traffic-cop morality and rabbit-test truth.

One of the saddest things about conformity is the ghastly sort of non-conformity it breeds; the noisy protesting, the aggressive rebelliousness, the rigid counter-fetishism.

Individualism is rather like innocence: There must be something unconscious about it.

Someone who gossips well has a reputation for being good company or even a wit, never for being a gossip.

The moving van is a symbol of more than our restlessness, it is the most conclusive evidence possible of our progress.