“Now in these troubled times, even more than ever, we need an affirmation that there is goodness and beauty in the world.”

My dear child, you must believe in God despite what the clergy tells you.

Young men make great mistakes in life; for one thing, they idealize love too much.

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.

There is a great deal of hard lying in the world; especially among people whose characters are above suspicion.

I am not blaming the past. … But I want the peace of God to settle on the future.

Precautions are always blamed. When successful they are said to be unnecessary.

If you don’t find a God by five o’clock this afternoon you must leave the college.

It is most important in this world to be pushing, but it is fatal to seem so.

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.

Grace is an energy; not a mere sentiment; not a mere thought of the Almighty; not even a word of the Almighty.

We can’t search or attain well being, wealth, studying, justice or kindness usually. Action is all the time particular, concrete, individualized, distinctive.

Give the clergy your sympathy; don’t give them anything else.

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.

Plato’s dialogues bear at least some similarities to the classical plays.

Jowett, in his day, did probably more than any other single man to let some fresh air into the exhausted atmosphere of the [Oxford] common rooms, and to widen the intellectual horizons of the place.

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

The most incredible beauty and the most satisfying way of life come from affirming your own uniqueness.

The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it.

With each passing moment of life, we learn lesson, but it is upto us to affirm and grow from that.

Beauty is not skin-deep; it can be a means of self-affirmation, a true indicator of personality and confidence.

Poetry has always mattered, through human history, through all kinds of cultures, all kinds of violence and human desolation, as well as periods of great human affirmation.

Acceptance is an act of the heart. To accept someone is to affirm to them that you think it’s a very good thing they are alive.

Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.