Educated people do indeed speak the same languages; cultivated ones need not speak at all.

Today's competitiveness, so much imposed from without, is exhausting, not exhilarating; is unending-a part of one's social life, one's solitude, one's sleep, one's sleeplessness.

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.

With intellectuals, moral thought is often less a tonic that quickens ethical action than a narcotic that deadens it.

Temperament, like liberty, is important despite how many crimes are committed in its name.

For tens of millions of people [television] has become habit-forming, brain-softening, taste-degrading.

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.