Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism

That's what a community is: taking for granted certain assumptions, not having to start from zero every time. This is no longer true.

It is easier to endure than to change. But once one has changed, what was endured is hard to recall.

The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.

One can know worlds one has not experienced, choose a response to life that has never been offered, create an inwardness utterly strong and fruitful.

Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. Except love.

Al forms of consensus about ''great'' books and ''perennial'' problems, once stabilized, tend to deteriorate eventually into something philistine. The real life of the mind is always at the frontiers of ''what is already known.'' Those great books don't only need custodians and transmitters. To stay alive, they also need adversaries. The most interesting ideas are heresies.