At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabric of culture has come to seem of little account, mere fantasy or ritual, or downright falsification....

Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.

In the most secret heart of every intellectual … there lies hidden … the hope of power, the desire to bring his ideas to reality by imposing them on his fellow man.

By loving people without cause, he discovered indubitable causes for loving them.” It would be hard to find a more succinct description of the chief work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart.

Orwell clung with a kind of wry, grim pride to the old ways of the last class that had ruled the old order. He must sometimes have wondered how it came about that he should...