In The Great Debates Of Early-nineteenth Century

It Is The Things We Think We Know - Because They Are So Elementary Or Because They Surround Us - That Often Present The Greatest Difficulties When We Are Actually Challenged To Explain Them.

We Are The Offspring Of History, And Must Establish Our Own Paths In This Most Diverse And Interesting Of Conceivable Universes—one Indifferent To Our Suffering, And Therefore Offering Us Maximum Freedom To Thrive, Or To Fail, In Our Own Chosen Way.

If A Man Dies Of Cancer In Fear And Despair, Then Cry For His Pain And Celebrate His Life. The Other Man, Who Fought Like Hell And Laughed In The End, But Also Died, May Have Had An Easier Time In His Final Months, But Took His Leave With No More Humanity.

The Truly Awesome Intellectuals In Our History Have Not Merely Made Discoveries; They Have Woven Variegated, But Firm, Tapestries Of Comprehensive Coverage. The Tapestries Have Various Fates: Most Burn Or Unravel In The Footsteps Of Time And The Fires Of Later Discovery. But Their Glory Lies In Their Integrity As Unified Structures Of Great Complexity And Broad Implication.

The Telephone Is The Greatest Single Enemy Of Scholarship; For What Our Intellectual Forebears Used To Inscribe In Ink Now Goes Once Over A Wire Into Permanent Oblivion.