The human landscape of the New World shows a conquest of nature by an intelligence that does not love it.

Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.

The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.

The simplest questions are the hardest to answer.

I don't see how the study of language and literature can be separated from the question of free speech, which we all know is fundamental to our society.

I soon realized that a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is going on in what he reads: The most conscientous student will be continually misconstruing the implications, even the meaning.

We do not live in a centred space any more, but have to create our own centres.