The lusts of the flesh can be gratified anywhere; it is not this sort of license that distinguishes New York. It is rather, a lust of the total ego for recognition, even for eminence. More than elsewhere, everybody here wants to be somebody.

The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.

Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.

The generality of mankind is lazy. What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really knows how smart or talented he is until he finds the incentives to use himself to the fullest. God has given us more than we know what to do with.

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.

The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.