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

The technique of winning is so shoddy, the terms of winning are so ignoble, the tenure of winning is so brief; and the specter of the has-been-a shameful rather than a pitiable sight today-brings a sudden chill even to our sunlit moments.

Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty.

Once you have money, you can quite truthfully affirm that money isn't everything.

It is disgusting to pick your teeth; what is vulgar is to use a gold toothpick.

In general, American social life constitutes an evasion of talking to people. Most Americans don't, in any vital sense, get together; they only do things together.

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.