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
Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion. – 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
We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part. – Allan Bloom
In winter there is no heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning, there is fog, and mist, the window is frosted, and you cannot see clearly. The sky is but the mouth of a cave. The whole day is the cave…. Frightful season! Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man. – Victor Hugo, Les Misérables: Fantine, translated from French by Chas. E. Wi