One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame, we have killed off so much real shame as well.

He was the mightiest of Puritans no less than of philistines who first insisted that beauty is only skin deep.

One must never judge the writer by the man; but one may fairly judge the man by the writer.

Doubtless a good general rule for close friendships, where confidences are freely exchanged, is that what one is not informed about, one may not inquire about.

Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.

Highly educated bores are by far the worst; they know so much, in such fiendish detail, to be boring about.

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.