Only Socrates knew, after a lifetime of unceasing labor, that he was ignorant. Now every high-school student knows that. How did it become so easy? – Allan Bloom
Any notion of the serious life of leisure, as well as mens taste and capacity to live it, has disappeared. Leisure has become entertainment. – Allan Bloom
The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency – the belief that the here and now is all there is. – Allan Bloom
There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech. – Allan Bloom
It is against stupidity in every shape and form that we have to wage our eternal battle. But how can we wonder at the want of sense on the part of those who have had no advantages, when we see such plentiful absence of that commodity on the part of those who have had all the advantages? – William Booth