The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is. Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business. Propaganda taken in that way is like a drug you do not know you are swallowing. The effect is mysterious; you do not know afterwards why you feel or think the way you do.

The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time.

Aristotle uses a mother's love for her child as the prime example of love or friendship.

Men value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant or sources of pleasure, and as excellent, or as intrinsically admirable or honorable.

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.

Love consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the other. That's why true love is never based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange.

If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you do not already possess.