Children, taught either years beneath their intelligence or miles wide of relevance to it, or both: their intelligence becomes hopelessly bewildered, drawn off its centers, bored, or atrophied. – James Agee
He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things: a one-track mind near the tracks end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive… – James Agee
The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes. – James Agee
I believe that every human being is potentially capable within his limits of fully realizing his potentialities; that this, his being cheated and choked of it, is infinitely the ghastliest, commonest, and most inclusive of all the crimes of which the human world can assure itself. – James Agee
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid. – Denis Diderot