In the history of mankind, fanaticism has caused more harm than vice.

The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to Advertising copy.

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

In the history of thought and culture the dark nights have perhaps in some ways cost mankind less grief than the false dawns, the prison houses in which hope persists less grief than the promised lands where hope expires.

This is, i think, very much the Age of Anxiety, the age of the neurosis, because along with so much that weighs on our minds there is perhaps even more that grates on our nerves.

The test of interesting people is that subject matter doesn't matter.

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