Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.

Education is the movement from darkness to light.

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidest and most pernicious illusion.

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

The artist is the most interesting of all phenomena, for he represents creativity, the definition of man.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.

Law may prescribe that the male nipples be made equal to the female ones, but they still will not give milk.

To recognize that some of the things our culture believes are not true imposes on us the duty of finding out which are true and which are not.

Once the law is broken with impunity, each man regains the right to any means he deems proper or necessary in order to defend himself against the new tyrant, the one who can break the law.

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.

As soon as tradition has come to be recognized as tradition, it is dead.

Whatever demon invented stiletto-heeled boots should roast in hell...

It was always a relief when she came home to him. Like water or food. Like music or that moment when you cut yourself with a knife and squeeze the skin and no blood oozes out.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’ll wake up with sweat drenching my chest and think it’s the blood and muck I was covered in that night.

America is a willingness of the heart.

However well organized the foundations of life may be life must always be full of risks.

All writers are propagandists.

Be virtuous and you'll be happy Nonsense Be happy and you'll begin to be virtuous.

I feel like artists that are always quite sad in real life always make really happy music, and artists who are really bouncy and bubbly always make really sad music.

Sometimes people talk about music, whether blogs or magazines, in a strange way where it doesn't seem like they're actually listening to it.