But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow get rid of authority in education; it is not so much (as poor Conservatives say) that parental authority ought to be preserved, as that it cannot be destroyed.

But this is not a religious work, and I must submit to those very narrow intellectual limits which the absence of theology always imposes.

This cry of "Save the children" has in it the hateful implication that it is impossible to save the fathers;

The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon.

this cult of the future is not only a weakness but a cowardice of the age.

I merely declare my independence. I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe; and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because they have been used.

In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor.

the only adequate answer is, that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused or destroyed.

Education is only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never come into our hand?