We Are All Sufferers From History, But

The Utopia Of The Populists Was In The Past, Not In The Future. According To The Agrarian Myth, The Health Of The State Was Proportionate To The Degree To Which It Was Dominated By The Agricultural Class, And This Assumption Pointed To The Superiority Of An Earlier Age.

The Intellectual ... May Live For Ideas, As I Have Said, But Something Must Prevent Him From Living For One Idea, From Becoming Obsessive Or Grotesque. Although There Have Been Zealots Whom We May Still Regard As Intellectuals, Zealotry Is A Defect Of The Breed And Not Of The Essence.

In Using The Terms Play And Playfulness, I Do Not Intend To Suggest Any Lack Of Seriousness; Quite The Contrary. Anyone Who Has Watched Children, Or Adults, At Play Will Recognize That There Is No Contradiction Between Play And Seriousness, And That Some Forms Of Play Induce A Measure Of Grave Concentration Not So Readily Called Forth By Work.

There Has Always Been In Our National Experience A Type Of Mind Which Elevates Hatred To A Kind Of Creed; For This Mind, Group Hatreds Take A Place In Politics Similar To The Class Struggle In Some Other Modern Societies.

It Is Possible That The Distinction Between Moral Relativism And Moral Absolutism Has Sometimes Been Blurred Because An Excessively Consistent Practice Of Either Leads To The Same Practical Result — Ruthlessness In Political Life.