Things Are Opaque To Us, And We

Art And Poetry Cannot Do Without One Another. Yet The Two Words Are Far From Being Synonymous. By Art I Mean The Creative Or Producing, Work-making Activity Of The Human Mind. By Poetry I Mean, Not The Particular Art Which Consists In Writing Verses, But A Process Both More General And More Primary: That Intercommunication Between The Inner Being Of Things And The Inner Being Of The Human Self Which Is A Kind Of Divination (as Was Realized In Ancient Times; The Latin Vates Was Both A Poet And A Diviner). Poetry, In This Sense, Is The Secret Life Of Each And All Of The Arts.

When One's Function Is To Teach The Loftiest Wisdom, It Is Difficult To Resist The Temptation To Believe That Until You Have Spoken, Nothing Has Been Said.

The Tragedy Of The Modern Democracies Is That They Have Not Yet Succeeded In Realizing Democracy.

What Makes Man Most Unhappy Is To Be Deprived Not Of That Which He Had, But Of That Which He Did Not Have, And Did Not Really Know.

The Spiritual Experience Of The Philosopher Is The Nourishing Soil Of Philosophy; That Without It There Is No Philosophy; And That, Even So, Spiritual Experience Does Not, Or Must Not, Enter Into The Intelligible Texture Of Philosophy. The Pulp Of The Fruit Must Consist Of Nothing But The Truth.