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.

One cannot refute what one has not thoroughly understood.

The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.

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.

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.

Arvandus!" I tried again to reach him. "You can come back now. I'm alone and would love to argue with you again.

He read because it gave him instant gratification in a way nothing else did, and as was the case with all addicts, gratification was the important thing.

The impoverished always try to keep moving, as if relocating might help.

Caring about the welfare of children and shaming parents are mutually exclusive endeavors.

To wit, existence is communication and communication is existence.

Faith that the thing can be done is essential to any great achievement.

Let's ask why it is that we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and your medicine can be doubled tomorrow, and there's nothing that the government can do to stop it.

Haste, the great enemy.

Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change.

I love it when artists talk about process! I love the movie Comedian.