Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.

There is no appeal from the ways of the world, which must continue on its own terms or take us all down with it into chaos and confusion.

It’s a curious thing. I suppose most people think of artists as impatient but I don’t know of any first-rate artist who hasn’t manifested in his career an appalling patience, a willingness to wait and to do his best now in the expectation that next year he will do better.

The art of reading is the art of adopting the pace the author has set. Some books are fast and some are slow, but no book can be understood if it is taken at the wrong speed.

Our best chance for happiness is education.

To fail to love is not to exist at all.

An unexamined idea, to paraphrase Socrates, is not worth having and a society whose ideas are never explored for possible error may eventually find its foundations insecure.