The human mind, if it is to keep its sanity, must maintain the nicest balance between unity and plurality.

Anyone who thus looks up has some chance of becoming worthy to be looked up to in turn.

For behind all imperialism is ultimately the imperialistic individual, just as behind all peace is ultimately the peaceful individual.

The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.

Furthermore, America suffers not only from a lack of standards, but also not infrequently from a confusion or an inversion of standards.

The industrial revolution has tended to produce everywhere great urban masses that seem to be increasingly careless of ethical standards.

Democracy is now going forth on a crusade against imperialism.

The humanitarian lays stress almost solely upon breadth of knowledge and sympathy.

If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.

We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration.

A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself spiritually the underdog.

She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.

Success needs no authorization, yet failure requires permission.

She's as old as the hills, evil as a snake, all malevolence and magic and death.

They call it poetry, what she feels with her mouth closed. By his.

I speak of the human heart, not a logic puzzle." -Diego de Gama

Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic.

What's the use of the wind if it won't take you away on it?

Il faut e pater le bourgeois. One must astound the bourgeois.

Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate towards some goal which they come to find desirable and which motivates them over the long haul.

I think sometimes writers must attempt to communicate the incommunicable, because, whether they wish it or not, they're the ones to whom it falls.