The way in which a certain kind of political idealism has been discredited and scorned makes the danger not that intellectuals keep on making fools of themselves, formulating political opinions when they might not be as informed as they might be, but that they retreat and leave politics to the professionals.

Etymologically, 'patient' means sufferer.

A lot of what I've written in criticism of my lust for virtue - my discovery that I've committed idolatry, making of the good an idol - is open to the charge of being still caught within the dialectic of idolatry. I've made a moral criticism of my moral consciousness. Meta-idolatry.

Passion paralyzes good taste.

Is it the obligation of great art to be continually interesting? I think not.

We are told we must choose - the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the new?

With the modern diseases (once TB, now cancer) the romantic idea that the disease expresses the character is invariably extended to assert that the character causes the disease -- because it has not expressed itself. Passion moves inward, striking and blighting the deepest cellular recesses.