Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.

A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.

If for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination.

Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.

We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.

As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.

The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.

The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die.

It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do.

Every time you cry, your tears put out my candle.

Whenever it comes to love, Remember the part about having confidence.

Of course, the world is full of problems. But on the other hand it's important to get the sense... are we generally moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?

I've always argued that it is just as desirable, just as possible, to have philosopher plumbers as philosopher kings.

All bad writers are in love with the epic.

You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!

She hasn't your strength. She's never had any strength. She's never had anything but heart.

I consider all my films an experiment, at least in my mind.

I met my husband when a friend sent him over to my house to cure my hiccoughs.

Chance throws peculiar conditions in everyone's way. If we apply intelligence, patience and special vision, we are rewarded with new creative breakthroughs.