We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our natural attitude toward the other is one of either indifference or hostility.

Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.

Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.

The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse and when he dies he is not reconciled to the law but defiant, that is, damned. Lear is not a tragic hero, Othello is.

Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.

Let me see what I wrote so I know what I think

Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father.