In an automobile civilization, which was one of constant motion and activity, there was almost no time to think; in a television one, there is small desire.

Many people today don't want honest answers insofar as honest means unpleasant or disturbing, They want a soft answer that turneth away anxiety.

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.

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.

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.

If it is the great delusion of moralists to suppose that all previous ages were less sinful than their own, then it is the great delusion of intellectuals to suppose that all previous ages were less sick.

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.