The life of sense begins by assuming that we can only fitfully live the life of reason.

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

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

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.

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.

A great maxim of personal responsibility and mature achievement: "Do it yourself" is now the enthroned cliche for being occupied with nonessentials.

Coyness is a rather comically pathetic fault, a miscalculation in which, by trying to veil the ego, we let it appear stark naked.