The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.

One cannot refute what one has not thoroughly understood.

Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness.

Life is too short to live with any but the greatest books.

Nothing ought to be said or done which could create the impression that unbiased reconsideration of the most elementary premises of philosophy is a merely academic or historical affair.

For try as one may to expel nature with a hayfork, it will always come back.

If the highest things are unknowable, then the highest capacity or virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom.

Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.

It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.

The contemporary rejection of natural right leads to nihilism - nay, it is identical with nihilism.

Philosophizing means, then, to ascend from public dogma to essentially private knowledge.

Depending on someone to make for you money is quite like depending on them to make for you a baby: they will own the money just as they will own the baby

Watch your thoughts, for they will become the words of people you draw to yourself.

Love always requires courage and involves risk.

If you compare yourself with others you may become vain or bitter for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight A lovely Apparition sent To be a moment's ornament.

When the house is on fire, don't tell me what your spiritual gift is. Just grab a hose and put out the fire.

I've seen a lot of people jump on and off my bandwagon.

We need to return to the cosmopolitanism of Alexandria of yore, and marry that with the tolerance and democracy of Europe today

If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity

Give up bondage; become a son, be free, and then you can "see the Father", as did Jesus.