English literature is a kind of training in social ethics. English trains you to handle a body of information in a way that is conducive to action. – Marilyn Butler
Classics are not classics because hoary with age — they are the steel balls which have worn down mountains but remained unchanged in the mill of time. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Without fullness of experience, length of days is nothing. When fullness of life has been achieved, shortness of days is nothing. That is perhaps why the young have usually so little fear of death they live by intensities that the elderly have forgotten. – Lewis Mumford